‘He is a hero’: Passerby saves passenger from car sinking in river after crash in Grafton
“Without his rapid intervention, the outcome could have been tragic.”
A Grafton man is being praised after he jumped into action Friday night, saving a female passenger from a car that was sinking in a river after a crash.“Without his rapid intervention, the outcome could have been tragic,” Grafton police said of Chris Etre, a town resident.Police said the crash occurred just before 10 p.m. near the intersection of Wheeler Road and Worcester Street. The driver of the car, with the female in the passenger seat, was heading down Wheeler Road when he hit a patch of black ice. The driver then lost control, and the car crashed off the roadway, landing in the river.“The male driver escaped but the female passenger was trapped,” police said. “A passing motorist, Chris Etre of Grafton, observed the crash, entered the water and broke a rear window helping the passenger escape before the vehicle became fully submerged.”Both occupants of the car were uninjured but transported to a local hospital for evaluation, police said.
https://www.facebook.com/GraftonPolice/posts/2656762794390309?__xts__%5B0%5D=68.ARCf2pIqRGH91UWQ3lDIEEycbc2JdV3R_297MP_bwtB0LSBN8t_-ZkXwO7xY-RrboUgAUiz1_2cwUlzUVkdSMjJTw8N_eN9emhk80RiJNnuNCNnU8Gny1P6NTRDZvAb8E0w_31mYSuanOIYpaE4LaBwitdVkZM4q8PieBwcf4D5sgLUwdMLq2dzaaIuwpLInV-Mzk_PvcFfP65-9l63TFNpnqo1ErMHk6YyWPySajNaCnumpJmdpOYBh7guA-WRY6kZNDdOhRt-alQMyBusWPeC93q45cVXzIiuCn897IwUPqAo6vkkCbpY-OOXChz0Oobqr_hAn5rZchcGDwdvPMBBxAA&__tn__=-R
The driver in the crash, a Grafton teen named Zahary Markt, told WHDH it was his girlfriend who was saved from the river. He escaped out of the car as it crashed and jumped into the water when he saw she was still trapped in the car.
“I’m screaming for people to help because I don’t have anything I can break [the glass] with, I’m trying to use my hands and feet but it’s just not working,” he told the station. “I just needed to get her out because hearing someone and seeing someone in the car is just scary.”
He said both he and his girlfriend are going to be OK.
“I really think he is a hero,” Markt said of Etre. “I know he doesn’t want to be seen as it but you can never not see someone who does that as a hero.”
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