The university math students heard the crash, saw the smoke and knew they had to act quickly. A motorcyclist had just collided with a car and was pinned beneath the flaming, twisted metal wreckage.
Disregarding their own safety, they rushed to the street and lined up with more than a half-dozen others on one side of the car. Within moments, they managed to lift the 4,000-pound car high enough for one rescuer to pull Brandon Wright to safety.
"The danger? I didn't think about it for a minute," said James Odei, 35, a doctoral candidate from Ghana who is studying statistics. "All I wanted to do was grab that car and raise it."
The rescuers are being called "heroes" and "angels"; the footage of their few minutes of heroics was captured on video and has gone viral on the Internet. The man they saved, a 21-year-old Utah State University student, is grateful.
"I'm just thankful for everyone that helped," Wright said by telephone from his hospital bed. "They saved my life."
Had none of the rescuers acted, "you can only speculate what the outcome would have been," Assistant Logan Police Chief Jeff Curtis said. "Every one of those people put their lives in danger."
That may be true, but none who came to Wright's aid want to be labeled a hero.
"That's a big title," said Abbass Sharif, 28, another doctoral candidate who is from Lebanon. "I don't consider myself a hero. It's just our humanity."
The crash occurred Monday near Utah State University in Logan. Wright was headed to a computer lab, said his uncle, Tyler Riggs. The BMW was pulling out of a parking lot.
Tire and skid marks showed that Wright lay the bike down and slid before colliding with the car, Curtis said.
Wright suffered no head trauma but broke both legs and his pelvis. The BMW driver, John Johnson, had minor injuries.
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