Kenneth and Dianne Knox nearly ran a woman and her two grandchildren off the road while driving on Interstate 80 in Sacramento, California.
And thank goodness they did because it saved their lives.
The senior couple was driving along Interstate 80 and Madison Avenue when Kenneth Knox saw flames shooting out from underneath another car on the road.
“Flames came out of both sides,” Kenneth Knox told WWLP.
When he pulled up alongside the car, he noticed that it was a woman driving with her two grandchildren buckled up in car seats in the back.
Kenneth Knox decided that he would have to try and force her off the road to save them since the woman had no idea that her car was on fire.
“It was like, ‘we’ve got to get her out of here,’” said Dianne Knox.
He got his car very close to her and was able to get the woman to pull over onto the side of the road.
“When we went up to the window she says, ‘why’d you pull me over?’ I said, ‘your car’s on fire…’ she said, ‘oh my god my babies,’” Kenneth Knox recalled.
He immediately threw the back door open without hesitation to free the children from their car seats.
“There’s a 3-year-old and 5-year-old strapped in car seats, so we started scrambling and got them out and got her out,” Kenneth Knox said to WWLP. “We had a job to do: get the kids out.”
Dianne Knox called 911 and Kenneth Knox was able to get the children and their grandmother to safety even though the car burst into flames.
It wasn’t long before it was completely engulfed.
“I got to hold the baby and carried him back to the ambulance. Boy, it hit me really hard,” said Kenneth Knox.
Before they departed, the Knoxs made sure to take their grandchild’s car seat out of the backseat and give it to the grandmother who had just lost two in the fire.
“This poor woman is sitting there shaking, and, you know, just got one more thing off her mind,” said Dianne. “I have a seven-year-old granddaughter and I said ‘I have a booster seat in the back of my car.’ So I went got the booster seat and took it out and gave it to her.”
The Knoxes said they were a little shaken up by the ordeal when they were able to process what happened.
“We got in the car after we gave him the car seat, she started crying because of that and we just sat and hugged each other for a minute,” Kenneth Knox said.
The Knoxes later got to reunite with the woman who they saved named Ofelia Clougher who said she hit a cardboard box on the highway but didn’t think anything of it until drivers started honking.
She said she wouldn’t have stopped if it wasn’t for the Knoxes.
“I look at them in the ambulance I said ‘gosh if no one stopped, I don’t think I could forgive myself,’” Clougher said of her grandchildren.
The Oakland Raiders ended up honoring the Knoxes during one of their games.
Learn more about their selfless act in the video below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
