By Kim Janssen
Chicago Sun Times
LOMBARD, Ill. — Pizza deliveryman Will Canelos started running the moment he heard the crunch of metal on metal Monday night.
The accident scene that confronted the 28-year-old and half a dozen other bystanders moments later on a street corner in west suburban Lombard was horrific: two pedestrians, trapped on the sidewalk under a mangled, rolled-over SUV, next to a battered semi-tractor trailer.
“Everyone got to work helping out immediately,” Canelos said, “We all knew what we had to do.”
Working together, the seven strangers found the strength to pick up the estimated 3,200 pound vehicle — with the 18-year-old driver still trapped inside — for long enough to pull Pascuala Hernandez-Gutierrez, 49, free.
The team of bystanders then lifted the other side of the SUV, freeing Hernandez-Gutierrez’s husband, Roman Gomez Sr., before paramedics arrived and took over.
Gomez remained in critical condition at Good Samaritan Hospital Tuesday night, but Hernandez-Gutierrez succumbed to her injuries and was declared dead half an hour after the accident, according to the DuPage County coroner’s office.
Details on the condition of the SUV driver, who had to be cut free, were not available, but he was expected to live. The driver of a semi involved in the wreck was unhurt, police said.
A grateful Roman Gomez Jr. said doctors were working to save his father’s legs, which were caught underneath the SUV when it rolled.
His parents, who both worked maintenance jobs at a Lombard apartment complex, were walking to the bank when the accident happened, he said.
“I offered to drive them but my mom’s doctor had told her she needed exercise, so she wanted to walk,” Gomez added.
“I don’t understand how this happened.”
Lombard police were still investigating Tuesday night how the SUV and the semi collided at the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Road, Lombard’s Deputy Police Chief Dane Cuny said, praising the efforts of Canelos and his fellow good samaritans.
“It never ceases to amaze us how willing people are to drop everything and help in an emergency,” he said.
But Canelos rejected any suggestion that he was a hero.
“We just did what you’d want anyone to do in the same situation,” he said.