Majiah Washington is being hailed as a hero for putting her own safety at risk to rescue a baby after three of his family members were electrocuted by a downed power line.
The tragic incident occurred Wednesday in northeast Portland as snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures hammered the Pacific Northwest. The storm appeared to cause a large tree branch to snap, bringing a power line down with it as both fell on the hood of an SUV, according to a press release from Portland Fire & Rescue.
In a Thursday press conference, Washington, 18, described seeing a flash outside her home before going to the window to see a couple scrambling to get their baby out of the vehicle.
The woman screamed to her boyfriend to get the baby to safety, and he grabbed the child and began to scramble up the driveway on concrete so slick it was almost impossible to walk. But before he made it halfway, he slid backward and his foot touched the live wire — “a little fire, then smoke,” Washington said.
The mother, six months pregnant, tried to reach the baby, but she too slipped and was electrocuted.
The woman’s 15-year-old brother came out of a nearby apartment complex and attempted to help them, but he was also electrocuted.
Washington said she was on the phone with 911 when she noticed the nine-month-old baby was still alive. He was lying on top of his father but Washington saw the baby move his head.
“I was concerned about the baby,” said Washington, who recognized the woman as her neighbour’s daughter.
“I just thought, I have a nephew myself, I have little brothers, I would want somebody to do the same thing, I would hope somebody would do the same thing.”
She kept a low crouch to avoid sliding into the wire as she approached. As she grabbed the baby she touched the father’s body, but miraculously, she wasn’t shocked.
Portland Fire and Rescue spokesperson Rick Graves praised Washington for her heroism but confessed he didn’t understand how she and the baby weren’t also electrocuted. The baby was examined at a hospital and is fine, authorities said.
“We do have fortunately with us a toddler that is going to be able to thrive,” Graves said. “And they are here, in part, because of the heroic acts of a member of our community.”
Fire officials wrote that they received numerous 911 calls related to the downed power line, and learned en route to the scene that there was “a person on fire in the street” and “three people laying in the street unconscious.”
When the fire crew arrived, they found the three victims approximately 35 feet away from the SUV, with the power line draped over its hood. The emergency workers evaluated the three individuals and confirmed they were all deceased.
Washington’s neighbour, Ronald Briggs, confirmed that his 21-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son were killed.
He told Portland television station KGW that his daughter had come over to use the internet after hers went out. He and his wife had just gotten in their car to run an errand when they heard the boom and saw the SUV apparently on fire.
He watched as the couple slid to their deaths — and then told his 15-year-old son, Ta’Ron Briggs, a high school sophomore, to keep his distance, to no avail.
“I told him, ‘Don’t go down there — try to get away from them.’ And he slid, and he touched the water, and he, and he died too,” Briggs said. “I have six kids. I lost two of them in one day.”
“It just hurt,” he said. “Being a good father cannot solve this right now.”
The frigid weather in the Pacific Northwest this past week has now been blamed for at least 10 deaths in Oregon from hypothermia and falling trees or utility poles, along with five from hypothermia in the Seattle area.
— With files from The Associated Press
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