Returning home after practice Saturday night, Pitt men’s basketball coach Jamie Dixon helped rescue two victims of a violent motor vehicle accident that left two Pennsylvania women with serious personal injuries. While driving the I-279 loop around Pittsburg, Dixon saw a car in front of him veer off the highway and crash into a barrier. The car flipped several times before coming to a stop.
“It hit straight on and flipped a couple of times,” Dixon told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “My initial thought was no one would survive this event.”
Dixon was the first person to reach the smoking wreckage and pulled a woman through a hole in the windshield.
“Someone was kicking at the windshield. Eventually, the windshield cracked. Someone was fighting to get out of the car. I was trying to give a bigger opening for the person to slide out,” Dixon recounted to the Post-Gazette.
Dixon could reach but was unable to remove a second victim from the auto, but he was able to touch and comfort her until rescue workers arrived. A rescue crew arrived on the scene in minutes and cut out the windshield to extract the second accident victim from the mangled vehicle. Both accident victims were transported to the hospital with serious personal injuries. Dixon was treated at the scene for cuts to his fingers caused while trying to rescue the two women.
In meeting with reporters the next day, Dixon downplayed his part in the rescue, noting that other motorists stopped to assist; he was just the first on the scene.
“I did what anyone else in Pittsburgh would have done given the situation. I just happened to be right behind the car,” he said.
Kudos to Coach Dixon. He is one of many Pennsylvania heroes who come to the aid of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia car accident victims when tragedies occur.