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Published on Thursday, August 26, 2004
in the Lakeland Ledger
LAKELAND -- One minute, Cpl. Helen McCoy of the Florida Highway Patrol was putting gas in her patrol car Tuesday. The next, she was freeing a man pinned underneath a Mustang.
McCoy said she heard a muffled cry while she was pumping gas at the county motor pool on Winter Lake Road. Though she didn't see anyone who looked to be in trouble, she couldn't ignore the disturbing sound.
"It just didn't sound right," she said.
McCoy got into her car and started looking for something out of the ordinary.
Nearby, at the end of a driveway on Winter Lake Road, McCoy spotted a woman and her daughter standing next to a Ford Mustang. The woman had a wrench in her hand.
McCoy asked the woman, Lashaunda Gartmond, if she was OK.
Gartmond, who lives nearby, said she was fine but that there was a man trapped underneath the car. The man, identified by the FHP as Arturo Marcos-Hernandez, was working under his Mustang when the jack holding it up broke, dropping the car on top of him.
McCoy called 911 and ran to her patrol car, where she got a jack out of the trunk.
Using her car jack, she lifted the Mustang, freeing MarcosHernandez.
Emergency workers took The 20year-old, who suffered burns to his torso and chest pains, to Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
A hospital official said he was not a patient Wednesday afternoon. Attempts to contact him at home were unsuccessful.
McCoy, who is a homicide investigator, said she hadn't ever had to lift a car off anyone before.
"I was just glad we got the car off him," she said.