STAMFORD, Conn. — A woman will remarkably be OK after she was hit by a transit bus in Connecticut and trapped beneath it until firefighters rescued her.
Firefighters in Stamford, Connecticut, used high-pressure airbags to lift the bus, and free the woman Tuesday.
Deputy Chief Matt Palmer was among the crews who rescued the woman. He said when he got to the scene, he prepared for the worst.
"Based upon my experience, you normally would be prepared to see the worst. I walked over and took a look underneath the bus," Palmer told NBC affiliate WNBC.
The bus was sitting low to the ground, giving firefighters little room to operate. Yet, somehow, the woman trapped underneath was OK.
"The first thing she asked me was, 'About how long should this take?' Which was a good sign," Palmer said. "We had to make sure the bus didn't move at all. Once we had that bus stabilized — which took a few minutes — they were able to set up our high-pressure airbags."
The airbags slowly lifted the hulking bus off the ground, allowing firefighters to place blocks underneath. Those blocks ensured the bus didn't collapse onto the woman or the rescue workers.
"What I was overseeing was the overall lift. So, as we lift I want to make sure that the weight doesn't shift on top of her in any way because we aren't gonna be able to lift that bus straight up in the air," Firefighter Nicholas DeAngelo said.
As the bus rose from the road, firefighter's asked the woman a few questions.
"'Do you feel the weight moving? Do you feel, does it feel like, it's shifting?' and she was like, 'No it feels like it's coming off of me, it's coming off of me.' She was able to get her arms out. We got a couple more inches," DeAngelo said.
Rescue workers slid her onto a stretcher, then pulled her out from underneath the bus and put her into an ambulance.
"All too often we go to incidents that don't have favorable outcomes and this was one that went very very quickly, extremely smoothly and she was fortunate only to experience minor injuries," said Palmer.
The extrication process took about 10 minutes. The woman was conscious, alert and able to talk to firefighters.