A teen from Portland, Oregon, has been hailed a hero for rescuing a baby after a collapsed powerline landed on a car during a winter storm last week, killing three people.
Majiah Washington, 18, jumped into action last Wednesday when she saw a flash outside her Portland home after a red SUV became entangled with a power line taken down by a fallen tree branch. The child’s parents had been putting their 9-month-old baby in his car seat when the tragic events occurred.
According to The Associated Press, the frantic mother yelled at her boyfriend to get the child and get away as the car caught fire. However, a thick sheet of ice caused the father to slip on the live wire when he was holding the baby, Washington said, electrocuting him. The child’s mother, who was reportedly six months pregnant, and her 15-year-old brother, who came outside to help, also died in the same manner.
Washington was on the phone with first responders as the trio lay on the ground when she saw the baby’s head move atop the father’s chest and knew that the 9-month-old was alive.
After witnessing three people being shocked to death, she attempted to save the baby. At a press conference last Thursday, Washington said she kept a low crouch as she approached to avoid sliding into the wires, according to The Associated Press. Despite touching the father’s body, she didn’t get shocked.
“I was concerned about the baby,” said Washington, who reportedly recognized the woman as her neighbor’s daughter. “Nobody was with the baby.”
Washington grabbed the baby and brought him back to safety. “I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, I could be electrocuted,'” she said. “I was more so thinking, ‘I have to grab this baby.'”
Portland Fire and Rescue spokesperson Rick Graves called Washington brave but admitted he didn’t understand how she and the baby weren’t electrocuted. He said the baby survived, in part, “because of the heroic acts of a member of our community.” He is healthy, the official added.
“I just thought I have a nephew myself, I have little brothers,” Washington said. “I would want somebody to do the same thing.”
Washington’s neighbor Ronald Briggs told local TV station KGW that the baby’s mother, his 21-year-old daughter, came over to use the internet at his home after hers went out.
Briggs sadly watched his daughter and her boyfriend slide to their deaths. He said he also yelled to his 15-year-old son, Ta-Ron Briggs, to stay away, but he didn’t, and he, too, slid and was fatally shocked.
“I told him, ‘Don’t go down there — try to get away from them.’ And he slid, and he touched the water, and he and he died too,” Briggs said. “I have six kids. I lost two of them in one day.”
“It just hurt,” he added. “Being a good father cannot solve this right now.”
In recent days, ice and freezing rain have reportedly caused at least ten deaths in Oregon.