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Good Samaritans Help Lift Vehicle After Girl Is Run Over In Wilkinsburg

WILKINSBURG (KDKA) -- Several men are being called heroes after lifting a car off of a girl who was run over and trapped underneath it Friday afternoon in the parking lot of a store in Wilkinsburg.

"I thank God for putting me there and I'd do it again," said Joseph Phillips, one of the Good Samaritans who helped free the girl.

Phillips is being hailed a hero, and so are some others.

"Next thing I know, I heard my manager screaming, and she was standing up on the counter, looking out the door. And I ran and asked her what happened, and she says a little girl got ran over," said Addie Thorn, an employee at the Dollar General who also rushed to help.

In the parking lot of the Dollar General on Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg, several men sprang into action when they realized the 7-year-old girl was in trouble.

"Six of us got together and pushed the car up, and then her mother pulled her out," said Thorn. "I sat there and I held her leg and held it still so she wouldn't move it."

"The little girl was screaming and hollering," added Phillips.

The driver of the car was still seated in the vehicle when they lifted it up. It's unclear how the girl got underneath it.

"It was kind of panicky out here, everybody was running around, nobody knew what to do or what to say; and the lady in the car, I think she was just about in shock," said Thorn. "She was trying to back up and I told her to stop because the way I seen the little girl's leg, it was like mangled, so we stopped and like six of us got together and pushed the car up, and her mother pulled her out."

But what's even more amazing about this story, it is Phillips' second time saving someone's life.

Last summer, Phillips stopped a man who didn't want to pay his fare from beating a Port Authority bus driver with a steel bar. He injured his hand in the process.

But that hasn't stopped him from helping others since.

"When your adrenaline is running, God gave me strength and all of us strength to get the car off the young lady," said Phillips.

Wilkinsburg Police say the girl is in stable condition at Children's Hospital.

The driver likely won't face charges as police believe the whole thing was an accident.

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