Witness recalls rescuing child in crash that kills 2 in Greene County

A 911 call details what witnesses saw just minutes after a vehicle crashed through a fence killing two people, including the efforts to save a child from the vehicle.

“My husband is trying to get into the car right now,” the female caller told dispatchers.  “There’s a baby crying.”

For several minutes, the caller tells the dispatcher what she and her husband, John Bright, saw Saturday as they searched through the wreckage.

"They're trapped," the woman said, describing the two victims who ultimately died in the crash.  "Someone who was driving by this stopped to help us as well."
MORE: Child survives double fatal crash in Greene Co.; Victims ID'd

The crash was reported around 5 p.m., when snow was falling in the 3100 block of Ohio 380 in Spring Valley Twp. The vehicle involved crashed through a fence, overturned and crashed into a tree.

Bright was one of the people on the scene trying to help pull the child out from the vehicle.

“The first thing I could just hear was the baby crying,” Bright told this news outlet Monday afternoon.  “Our first priority was to get that baby safe.”

LISTEN: 911 call released in Spring Valley double fatal crash

Carl A. Perry, 49, of Xenia, was identified as the driver of a 2004 Ford F-Series pickup truck who was pronounced dead at the scene. His passenger, Linda J. Davis, 73, also of Xenia, was taken with life-threatening injuries to Miami Valley Hospital, where she died, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Xenia Post.

The child, the lone survivor in the crash, was taken to Dayton Children’s Hospital with injuries not believed to be life threatening.

“We have the child out,” the woman said in the call as the people helping on scene pull the child to safety, adding that the child was crying she said.

State troopers said the child was restrained in a child seat.

Perry was wearing a seatbelt, however troopers said Davis was not.

Bright was thankful he and his wife, who is a nurse practitioner, were home and were able to help.

“We had just gotten home from some Christmas shopping,” he said.  “We were just thankful we were actually here.”

About the Author