Video: Strangers stop a car rolling through a busy Boynton Beach intersection, saving the unconscious driver

BOYNTON BEACH — It had all the potential to go terribly wrong — a woman falls unconscious at the wheel of her car, which starts rolling into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection in Boynton Beach during rush hour.

Laurie Rabyor, 63, of West Palm Beach, left work at CityShade Company in Boynton Beach shortly before 5 p.m. May 5 when she passed out while driving.

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But at least eight people jumped out of their cars to stop traffic — and Rabyor’s car — saving her from crashing at the intersection of Congress Avenue and Woolbright Road.

“It’s so nice to know there’s people out there that actually care and will do the right thing,” Rabyor said.

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The eight good Samaritans were honored Friday in a ceremony at the Boynton Beach Police Department headquarters. It was the first time Rabyor had seen them since the incident.

“I don’t even know how to thank them all,” she said.

Those who were honored were Juan Chavez, Jr., of Boynton Beach; DaVida Peele of Delray Beach; Robin Fox of Wellington; David Formica of Boca Raton; Marko Bartolone of Boynton Beach; Michael Edelstein of Boynton Beach; Jannette Rivera of West Palm Beach; and Muriel Vaughns of Boynton Beach.

Boynton Beach police said video of the incident has been viewed more than 40 million times worldwide.

Rabyor said she’s moved that people will help a stranger. And she was especially moved by the group’s diversity.

“You see all the nationalities,” Rabyor said. “There was a Black woman, there was a Jewish man, there was a Spanish woman, a Latino. They were all over the place.

“And here I am just a little old white lady and they all came together to help me and I thought that was wonderful … They all just came together to do it.”

The so-called good Samaritans said there might have been as many as 20 people who helped at one point or another.

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Videos and 911 calls released by the Boynton Beach Police Department this week showed the group’s efforts to prevent a tragedy, as well as their quick-thinking response by shattering Rabyor’s window with a dumbbell to get inside the car. In a stroke of luck, one of the bystanders was a nurse.

The video shows Rabyor’s gray sedan drifting from the northbound lanes at an angle into oncoming traffic in the southbound lanes.

Rivera, a co-worker, was the first one to lend assistance. She’s the person in the video who got out of her car, waving her arms and running after Rabyor’s car as it entered the intersection. Rivera, Rabyor’s co-worker for three years, said she and Rabyor don’t usually leave work at the same time. Asked why they were together at the same traffic light at the same time on that particular day, Rivera was stumped.

“I really don’t know,” she said. “God put us together.”

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As Rabyor’s car inched slowly toward others, another person tried to help. In the video, a blue car pulled up into the lane directly ahead of Rabyor’s car. A white car in the next lane swerved out of the way. The cars, then feet away from potential impact with Rabyor’s car, started to back up.

A third person came to help. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth and a seventh person — some pushing against the front of Rabyor’s car.

Chavez, the person in the Army uniform in the video, said when he saw the incident unfold “there was no doubt in my mind I needed to do something.”

He then said with a smile, “After I saw the video I thought, ‘This is pretty stupid.’”

Vaughns provided the dumbbell. Formica smashed the window. Edelstein tried to smash a window with his bare hand but was unsuccessful.

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Many of the good Samaritans on Friday referred to their heroics with humor.

“I was the fool that jumped in front of the car and tried to punch the window out,” he said.

“I got to play real-life Frogger,” Chavez said, referring to the 1980s-era video game in which players attempt to safely hop an animated frog across busy lanes of traffic.

Peele, a postal worker, helped stop traffic while the others attempted to stop the car. She was upset that people initially blew their horns because they couldn’t go through the intersection.

“I used a few choice words I won’t say now to the people that started blowing,” she said.

Bartolone was across the street at a convenience store.

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“I’ve got to say when I first saw what was happening I had a different perspective on it,” he said. “I saw a lady chasing a car through an intersection in South Florida, waving her hands, and I thought, ‘Wow, she’s really mad at that other driver.’

“And then I saw [Rivera] waving her hands screaming for help, and I thought maybe she needs help.”

Bartolone doubted he couldn’t stop the car by himself.

“But then I see Chavez in his uniform running across the intersection, and I thought, ‘Well, with a couple of people we can probably stop the car,’” he said. “And then I thought, ‘I’m not getting in front of that car,’ but I ended up getting in front of the car anyway.”

The group was able to stop the car’s slow roll toward other cars and smashed a window open.

They got the passenger-side door open and then the driver’s door. They moved the car into a gas station parking lot.

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Fox, a nurse, called 911 and got out of her car to get closer to the driver. Someone in the background of the call shouted for people to move out of the way.

“Her pupils are equal,” Fox tells the operator once the car was stopped. “Laurie, Laurie, take a look at me … She’s nonverbal right now. Laurie, can you squeeze my fingers? Can you squeeze my fingers? Can you squeeze my fingers here?”

On Friday, each of the eight good Samaritans received a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolate-covered pretzels, a plaque, a challenge coin from the Boynton Beach Police Department, and a six- to eight-day Caribbean cruise along with a backpack and a $2,000 gift card from Royal Caribbean.

As for Rabyor, she spent two days in the hospital after the incident. A combination of new blood pressure medication and fasting in preparation for a colonoscopy had caused her to pass out, but she doesn’t remember anything about the episode. At the hospital, doctors adjusted blood pressure medicine again. She’s due to see her primary physician Wednesday to see if her medication is working correctly.

“I feel good,” she said, “so hopefully, it is.”