Students Lift Truck Off Victim; 'It Wasn't Us, It Was God,' One Says
Football players from Eastern New Mexico University are being hailed as heroes after lifting a truck off a man in Portales, New Mexico on Wednesday.
Chevy Mikaele and Ben Langford were attending church service on Wednesday night when they heard a man yelling for help. When they went outside, they saw John Reilly trapped underneath his truck, which had flipped over.
"The truck was completely crushing him, completely on his chest," Pastor Johnny Pacheco told KOB Eyewitness News.
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Mikaele and Langford immediately set to work trying to free Reilly and managed to get the truck high enough in the air so that Pastor Pacheco could get him out. It took an enormous amount of strength, but being football players, the young men were able to lift the portion of the truck that was on the man's chest and hold it long enough for Pastor Pacheco to pull him free.
"When I dragged him out, he wasn't breathing at all," the minister said. "We looked for a pulse, but there was no pulse that we could find."
Miraculously, Reilly did start breathing on his own. He was taken to a nearby hospital in Lubbock, where he is reportedly fighting for his life and has been diagnosed with the cracked spine. Reilly's wife is extremely grateful to the three men who fought to save his life and were able to get the truck off of him—she is now praying for his complete recovery.
"Thank God for these guys that were there," Mary Reilly said. "He means the world to me."
"I believe that if God didn't have us placed here, and if He wasn't able to give the strength to these men, he would have died under that vehicle," Pastor Pacheco said.
The players are also grateful to God for giving them the ability to lift the vehicle and help save a life.
"For some reason, we just came right after practice and we made it just in time," Mikaele said. "It wasn't us, it was God. You can see this truck looks pretty heavy; it wasn't us. It took the strength of God for us to pick this up, so all the glory goes to God, not us."
"We firmly believe that God knew it was going to happen and that he put us here at the right place at the right time," Langford added.
