BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah (ABC 4 News) - An Ogden woman is alive tonight thanks to the help of a quick thinking good samaritan and an off-duty Utah Highway Patrol trooper.
Heidi Orosco of Ogden was driving northbound on I-15 near mile marker 361 in Box Elder County on Monday when she drifted into the median, and then over-corrected several times. Her car rolled several times down an enbankment before it landed upside down in a ditch.
Jason Navarro was driving by the accident when it happened. When he arrived at the car in the ditch, Navarro realized it was filling with water. He ran up to the roadway to get a knife from his vehicle when he noticed a Highway Patrol car coming towards him. Navarro stood in the road and flagged down off duty trooper Alex Williams.
When trooper Williams ran to the vehicle, he realized Orosco was unresponsive and under water from her shoulders up. "I touched her arm just to see if I could get a response as I was cutting her loose and I could see she wasn't responding," says Williams.
Trooper Williams used Navarro's knife to cut the seat belt away from Orosco who was pinned between the steering wheel and the driver's side door. Meanwhile, Navarro used a plastic bottle in the car to bale water away from her face until emergency crews arrived.
Orosco went from being totally unresponsive and lifeless to communicating with emergency crews before she left the scene. She suffered a severe spinal injury and is staying at Ogden Regional Medical Center.
Both Navarro and Williams say they were in the right place at the right time. "We're just happy she's alive and hopefully she'll be okay and make it through everything," says Navarro.
