By Ann Marie Bush and Phil Anderson
The Topeka Capital-Journal
TOPEKA, Kan. — Glen Pruitt credits his wife and a Topeka city councilman for saving his life Wednesday morning after his black Pontiac Firebird fell on him while he was attempting to replace a flywheel.
“I thought I was going to die,” Pruitt, 38, said Wednesday afternoon as he rested in the living room of his southeast Topeka home.
Councilman John Alcala, who is battling a medical condition, put aside his personal safety to help Pruitt.
Emergency crews were sent at 9:36 a.m. to 913 S.E. 8th on a report of a vehicle that had fallen on a person.
Pruitt told police officers he had been pinned under the car for about 10 or 15 minutes before Alcala pulled him from beneath the vehicle.
“It felt like someone was kneeling on my chest,” said Pruitt, who sustained four broken ribs, a lung that was nearly collapsed, and three small broken bones in his back.
Alcala was in a car across the street from where the accident occurred, waiting on his mother to drive him to the doctor for treatment of a blood clot in one of his legs.
After hearing Pruitt’s wife, Reneé Pruitt, scream for help, Alcala got out of the car and made his way across the street.
Alcala told The Topeka Capital-Journal that Reneé Pruitt was frantically trying to get the car off her husband by using a hydraulic jack.
“I could see her legs, and she was screaming,” Pruitt said. “I was thinking about my wife and kids and what they would do without me.”
The Pruitts have two children, both of whom were in school at the time.
The jack wasn’t in a locked position and therefore wasn’t lifting the car, Alcala said.
Alcala put the jack into its locked position and was able to lift the car, which he said was on top Pruitt’s chest at an angle.
“I was just screaming and screaming. I was so scared. I am so glad they heard me,” Reneé Pruitt said about Alcala and another neighbor who came to her aid. “I would be lost without him (her husband).”
Alcala called 911 and then pulled Pruitt from under the car.
Pruitt was alert and talking to emergency responders after he was freed. He was taken by American Medical Response ambulance to a Topeka hospital.
Pruitt was treated in a trauma room, he said. Although hospital officials wanted to keep him overnight, Pruitt said he agreed to return to the hospital Thursday for more X-rays and tests.
Pruitt said he has known Alcala for years.
“I’m glad John was there,” he said. “I’m glad John came and helped.”
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