The good Samaritan badly hurt Saturday when he stopped to help a motorist who had wrecked, only to be forced to leap off a bridge to avoid another vehicle that slammed into the wreckage, is recovering from his injuries and talking about his 37-foot fall.
Despite suffering a broken leg and arm, Martreece Tyson, 36, of Mableton says he would do it over again.
"I would definitely stop for someone else," he said on Monday.
The incident happened around 3 a.m. Saturday after the suspected drunk driver of a Saturn VUE sport utility vehicle hit a bridge guardrail along the East-West Connector near Camp Highland Road in Smyrna and spun out.
Tyson stopped to help and was standing on the bridge when another vehicle came along and struck the SUV.
Smyrna police Lt. Robert Harvey told Channel 2 Action News that Tyson “had to make a choice whether to stay in the roadway or jump over a bridge parapet.”
Tyson chose to jump, and plunged to the bed of an abandoned railroad line.
Despite the fall, he was able to call 911 on his cell phone.
“He is seriously injured, but obviously conscious and breathing, since he called 911,” Harvey told the station. “It’s a miracle to me.”
Paramedics walked down a drainage ditch to reach Tyson, who was taken to Atlanta Medical Center.
"I had no idea how deep the drop was until I actually jumped over, and it was like the never-ending drop," Tyson told Channel 2 from his hospital bed on Monday.
"It was a split-second decision," Tyson said. "It was either in my mind get smashed by the cars or jump. And at the time it was the best decision to jump."
The driver of the Saturn, 26-year-old Rozina Lynn Virani of Austell was booked into the Smyrna Jail, charged with DUI and failure to maintain lane, Harvey said.
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