This weekend she and Steve Crump, who turned out to live nearby, have dinner plans.
Skahan, of Washington Twp., was headed back home Cincinnati up Interstate 75 when she heard horns honking frantically. She didn’t know it, but smoke and flames were pouring out of the bottom of her car.
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Crump, a former Marine and retired police officer and firefighter from Beavercreek, is credited with saving her life.
“That was life and death ... that was get her over now and get her out right away,” he said.
Friday night, News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy was there when Skahan and Crump’s family had an emotional reunion. Skahan again thanked Crump, the man she calls her “guardian angel.”
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“I think it’s incredible ... there are good people everywhere. And I was lucky to have those people with me,” she said.
Crump said he’s glad someone with his skillset and the 911 alert button in his truck was in the right place at the right time.
“There’s a reason for everything. And there was a reason I was there at that time and that place that day,”he said.
Skahan said it’s still not clear what caused her Toyota to catch fire, but that now it was in the hands of insurance agents.
This weekend, the two families plan to meet for dinner.
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FIRST REPORT
A woman in her 80s is praising a Beavercreek man after she said he pulled her from her vehicle Monday moments before the car burst into flames on Interstate 75 Monday.
“He’s my guardian angel,” said Mary Skahan, a Cincinnati native now living in Washington Twp.
Skahan was driving north on I-75 on the northern fringe of Cincinnati around 7:15 p.m. when Steve Crump, his wife and teenage daughter spotted smoke coming from her vehicle on their way home from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
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Crump said he was able to get Skahan’s attention and got her off the road and onto the shoulder of the busy highway. Within moments Crump said he, along with a few others, were able to help Skahan to safety before fire took over the vehicle.
“It didn’t take very long after we pulled her out that it became fully engulfed,” Crump said.
Skahan along with her family have invited Crump, his family and another family that assisted in her rescue to her home Saturday for dinner as a token of thanks.
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