By Carlos Andres López
Las Cruces Sun-News
LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Trapped inside a vehicle that rolled over earlier this week, Celina Camarillo-Dilbert could only think saving about her unborn child.
But the 23-year-old Las Cruces resident, who is seven months pregnant with her first child, was unable to escape the wreckage — until she was pulled out of the vehicle by two men.
She credits the men and other passersby who stopped to help with saving her life and that of her unborn child.
“They are my heroes,” Camarillo-Dilbert said on Thursday. “I don’t know what would have happened if they hadn’t been there at that time. The car could have caught fire, or I could have lost consciousness and lost my child.”
Camarillo-Dilbert said she was driving to work in a black Ford Fusion when the single-vehicle rollover occurred shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday. She recalled becoming briefly distracted while driving south on Roadrunner Parkway and then hitting a curb.
She maintains that she was not speeding or texting at the time when she hit the curb.
Still, she lost control of the vehicle and struck several 3-feet-high barrier poles before her vehicle rolled over, landing on its top.
She was upside down and stuck in the vehicle for what she said felt like “an eternity” before help arrived.
“I waited and waited, and that’s when I started to panic,” she said. “I saw a gentleman wearing a blue shirt peek (inside the vehicle) and ask if I was OK and if anyone else was in the vehicle.”
At that point, she said, she became hysterical and start yelling: “My baby, my baby!”
Not long after, she said, two other men busted the passenger side window and pulled her out to safety. At least five people had gathered to help in the aftermath of the crash, she said.
And while she doesn’t remember in detail what happened after she was removed from the vehicle, she recalled that a woman, who said she was nurse, checked her vitals and asked her questions about her pregnancy.
“I didn’t remember anything about me because I was in shock,” she said. “I remember her asking me how far along I was, and I couldn’t remember.”
About five minutes later, police officers and paramedics arrived at the crash scene.
Las Cruces police spokesman Dan Trujillo said Thursday that three officers, one patrol and two traffic, responded to the crash and were dispatched around 8:50 a.m.
“When officers arrived on the scene, the driver had been taken out of the vehicle,” Trujillo said.
Camarillo-Dilbert was then transported to a hospital in Las Cruces, where she learned that she only suffered minor injuries and that her baby was unharmed. “I’m pretty banged-up now, but the cuts I had were only superficial,” she said.
Several hours after the crash, she took to social media to express her gratitude to all those who came to aid.
“To those civilian responders, paramedics, and law enforcement officers that responded to my accident this morning, words cannot express my sincerest gratitude,” she wrote in a post on the Facebook page, Las Cruces Community Watch. “I would really like to know who the civilians are, you helped save my unborn child’s and my life today and I am forever in debt with you all for that.
The post sparked wide-ranging engagement, garnering more than 170 reactions, 31 shares and nearly 20 comments.
Camarillo-Dilbert said Thursday she is planning to personally thank the men who pulled her out of the vehicle with a gift basket. “I’m just so grateful for them,” she said.
Copyright 2016 the Las Cruces Sun-News