MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - A family driving back from the Middletown High School football game in Bethlehem on Friday night was quickly called into action when they came upon the burning wreckage of a car on Stoner Drive in Lower Swatara Township.
“People are saying we're their angels,” Jocilyn Koser, a Middletown High School student who aided the rescue, said.
Koser, her aunt Jennifer Dixon, and her grandmother Mavis Dixon were part of the group of people who helped save the lives of two young men whose car was overturned and on fire.
They say their call to action was by pure chance.
“My one daughter said ‘Let's go down this road,’ [the other] said ‘No, I feel something's wrong,’ so we turned the corner, and that's when we turned the corner and seen that car flipped over like that,” Mavis Dixon said.
Scott Shaffer, 19, and Joseph Keating, 18, were also driving back from the Middletown game when they crashed and got trapped inside the burning car, which the Dixons say was ready to explode.
“I kicked the back window open three times and the third time it shattered, and then that's when he had his hand out still saying help me, help me and started pulling him out from the front seat,” Jennifer Dixon said.
“And so we both grabbed his arm to pull him out and then once we got him out, we both were holding him took him over to the guardrail,” Mavis Dixon said.
The women saw the men were still on fire, and say they took some of their clothes off to pat the fire out.
The men were taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital where they are stable.
Jocilyn Koser knows Keating from their time at school.
“Instead of recording the guys, we actually helped them out and helped save their lives because a lot of people would just stand there and videotape it,” Koser said. “I didn't want to be that person.”
Jennifer Dixon was also taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.
She was discharged Sunday, and says she would step in again if needed.
“I was just determined to make sure that these kids would be alive,” she said. “Of course, I risked my own life to save people I never met in my life, but I'm glad I did and they're going to be okay.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to raise funds for the medical expenses of Shaffer and Keating.