A Dozen Strangers Lifted a 2-Ton SUV Off a Woman in Seconds

On a Sunday afternoon in Manhattan, a 25-year-old woman named Veronika stepped into a crosswalk at the intersection of Delancey and Norfolk Streets on the Lower East Side - and the next few seconds would end up watched by millions of people around the world.

Hit and Pinned

At around 5:10 p.m. on January 26, 2020, a 65-year-old woman driving a Mercedes-Benz GLE SUV failed to yield and struck Veronika in the crosswalk. The impact knocked her to the ground and the rear tire of the vehicle rolled over her ankle, pinning her face-down on the asphalt beneath more than two tons of car. The driver, rather than stopping immediately, clipped another vehicle at the intersection before coming to a halt.

Veronika was conscious throughout. "I was conscious the entire time, so I was able to react," she later told CBS New York. What she saw next - from her position flat on the ground under the chassis - was a pair of feet. Then more feet. Then the car began to move.

Within Seconds

Witness Colby Droscher heard a crash followed by screams from a full block away. By the time he reached the intersection, a crowd was already forming. "All of a sudden everyone ran to lift the car," he said. Witness Iluminado Pastoriza put the count at more than 10 people who rushed to the SUV and collectively began rocking it. Together, they tilted the Mercedes-Benz GLE - a vehicle with a curb weight of approximately 4,700 pounds - up onto two wheels, far enough for Veronika to crawl free on her own.

A bystander at the scene could be heard calling out: "She's out, she's out, down, down, down" as the car was lowered back to the ground.

The Outcome

Veronika was transported to Bellevue Hospital. Doctors found no broken bones - only a concussion, heavy bruising, torn clothing, and broken glasses. She was treated and released. The driver was issued a summons for failing to yield to a pedestrian.

Veronika, who had moved to New York from Germany just two weeks before the accident and had only just started a new job, spoke to reporters from her hospital bed. "I think that it's a miracle," she said. "It's incredible. My main reaction is that I am just unbelievably grateful for everyone who came straight away and helped."

The City That Supposedly Doesn't Care

The footage was captured on a cell phone by a bystander and posted to Twitter, where it accumulated 4.4 million views and tens of thousands of retweets within days. The reason it spread so fast is obvious to anyone who has ever heard the stereotype about New Yorkers - cold, indifferent, too busy to stop. Here was a dozen of them, sprinting across an intersection, collectively benchpressing a luxury SUV to save a stranger they had never met, in under five seconds.

The bystander effect - the psychological phenomenon where individuals are less likely to help in a crowd because they assume someone else will act - apparently did not apply at Delancey and Norfolk on January 26, 2020. Everyone acted. At the same time. Immediately.

"It's New York in a nutshell," one commenter wrote under the viral video. The stereotype died right there on the Lower East Side.