Click here for updates on this story
HERMITAGE, Tenn. (WSMV) — Mark Johnson was among a number of people who stopped to help the victim in Thursday night’s deadly crash in Hermitage.
Johnson was behind the vehicle that he says illegally passed a truck and hit another car head-on.
The passenger, who has not been identified, was thrown from the car. Johnson says he ran up and saw him lying face down on found no pulse, so he immediately began CPR.
“I instantly thought, you know, this is somebody’s son, this is somebody’s brother,” said Johnson. “I was just hoping and praying that this guy’s eyes would open up, that he would start breathing.”
Johnson and a few others performed CPR for about 15 minutes before paramedics arrived on scene. Unfortunately, the man didn’t make it.
“I feel like we did everything we could do to help him but at the end of the day we wanted to save him, we wanted him to come back and he didn’t,” said Johnson.
The woman driver the vehicle, identified as 31-year-old Whittney Martinez, is charged with vehicular homicide by intoxication.
“Never drive drunk. With access to Uber and Lyft, it’s cheap, why put your life or someone else’s life at risk when there are so many ways to get home,” Johnson said.
According to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security, there were 344 alcohol-related crashes in Davidson County from January through June this year.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
