Women Rescue Mom Caught Underneath Moving Car, with Baby Inside

ATLANTA -- What a day for three women and a baby.

"She was being dragged by her car, right here."

Raquel Hernandez is speaking of the woman she heard screaming, at about 1:00 or 1:30 Wednesday afternoon, just outside the office of Hernandez's accounting firm at Jonesboro Road and Highway 138 in Clayton County.

The woman in peril turned out to be 20 year old Dana Jones of Riverdale.

Jones had somehow gotten herself trapped underneath the front of her car, and the car was rolling, dragging her on Jonesboro Road.

The car was about to roll into the busy intersection with Highway 138.

And Jones's daughter, a toddler, was in a car seat in the backseat.

Raquel Hernandez and her sister Letty Morrissey somehow, from inside their office which usually muffles the traffic noise, heard Jones screaming for help louder than all the traffic.

"I could hear very well her screaming, 'Help! Somebody help! Somebody help! Somebody help!'" Morrissey said.

Morrissey and Hernandez ran outside, and almost froze with fear at what they saw.

Almost.

"I saw the baby first, and that scared me the most," Hernandez said, "and her [Jones's] leg was trapped" underneath the car.... I went like this, I put the car in park, took the key off...."

Hernandez demonstrated on another car how Jones's car was rolling at about one or two miles per hour. Hernandez showed how she reached through the open window of the driver's side, put the transmission in park, took out the key, pulled Jones's infant girl and car seat out of the car, and opened the trunk to get the jack.

Hernandez tried to talk with Jones while beginning to jack up the car.

With traffic whizzing around them.

Jones was "very trapped" underneath the car. "She said, 'Is the baby okay?' And I yelled back, 'Yes.'"

Morrissey called 911 and helped her sister work the jack.

"But when we tried to lift the car, it moved it forward," Hernandez said, and they were afraid of making matters worse for Jones.

Minutes later, Clayton County Fire and Rescue crews arrived, and Morrissey photographed them in action.

Her photos show one firefighter on his stomach underneath the car holding Jones's hand the entire time.

Later, a Clayton County police officer spoke with Jones and, according to Lt. Rebecca Brown, "she stated she got under her car to knock on the starter, and apparently did not have [the transmission] completely in park. When the car started to roll, her foot got caught on one of the tires" or wheel well.

Jones was dragged about 300 feet before Hernandez was able to stop the car.

Jones was badly injured, but alive, and a helicopter flew her to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. She was in stable condition Wednesday night.

Her daughter, about a year and a half old, is with relatives, and, Morrissey said, "never cried, she was very good the whole time.... The way this thing happened fast, I mean, it's like a miracle from God."

"I hope she'd doing good and she recuperates well," said Hernandez.

What a day for three women and a baby. A good day -- by the end of it.

"I know!" Hernandez said, with a chuckle. "I hope it's not like this every day."