An ex-convict living in a halfway house is being praised for jumping off a city bus to run to the aid of a car accident victim despite knowing that he would miss an important job interview in the effort.
Aaron Tucker, 32, was riding a Bridgeport, Connecticut, bus to a job interview when he saw an overturned car spewing a column of smoke. Tucker jumped off the bus to give aid to the driver, according to the New York Daily News.
“I looked up and saw a car flipped over right in front of the bus, so I ran to try to jump out of the bus,” the good Samaritan told the media.
The driver apparently hit a tree over turning the vehicle, News 12 reported.
Tucker noted that the bus driver didn’t want to get involved and even warned him that if he got off the bus, he would lose his ride.
“I said I was going to help him, and asked the driver if he was going to wait for me and he said, ‘no, I am going to leave you,'” Tucker said of his conversation with the bus driver.
The ex-con said that once he got to the accident scene he saw the driver was bleeding from a head wound. So, he took his own shirt off to bind the victim’s wound and then carefully removed him from the smoking vehicle.
“He kept shutting his eyes, and I made sure he stayed awake. I told him to open his eyes; I said, ‘your family wants you,'” Tucker told the paper.
The accident victim is OK, police said.
The hero said he was sad to miss his job interview, but “a life is only one time. The only thing running through my head is that person in the car could pass away, and I could help him,” he said.
Tucker may have lost the job he was to have interviewed for, but the publicity over his actions at the accident scene brought three new and better job offers. Tucker said that after serving 22 months on a weapons charge, the job offers are very meaningful to him so that he can again begin to earn enough money to raise his 21-month-old son.
“When I come home he is going to live with me,” Tucker said of his little boy. “I know that if I continue to work, I am going to get a job because I am not going to go without supporting my son and raising my son to be happy.”
Westport community activist Kami Evans says that the community has joined in praise for Tucker’s actions.
“All of my FB pages have been blowing up with how can I help, what can I do,” Evans said. She and others are now organizing to gather clothing or things Tucker might need as he goes through his term in the halfway house and as he works to get back into society.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.