There’s a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time. If you’re open to God using you for His glory, the chances are you’ll eventually find yourself in some pretty amazing, and even miraculous, situations.
That’s exactly what happened when Mitchell Loewen, a 25-year-old defensive end for the New Orleans Saints, interrupted lunch with his family to rescue a man pinned inside his vehicle after a bizarre accident, The Times-Picayune reported.
The incident happened Sunday, when a young driver in his mid-20s mistakenly drove his silver Mercedes Benz SUV off the fourth floor of a parking garage in New Orleans’ Central Business District. With the unnamed driver stuck inside, the car landed on its roof in the middle of a busy street.
“To tell you the truth, when I ran over there, got on my hands and knees and looked inside that car, I thought I was gonna see a dead man,” Loewen said during a recent interview on the NFL Network’s “Total Access.”
With the help of 10 other nearby good Samaritans, Loewen said they were able to flip the SUV over onto its side, then completely upright. At that point, the footballer said, the man inside the vehicle wasn’t very responsive.
“We knew we had to get to him somehow, so one man crawled through the windshield that had broken and he unlatched the door from the inside and I pried the door open,” Loewen explained.
Saints player helps save man trapped in car that plunged from CBD garage https://t.co/9w0PcK12Hk pic.twitter.com/PFzuIbWUnn
— SaintsNOW (@SaintsNOW) July 16, 2018
Loewen went on to say it was “an act of God” that he happened to be in the right place at the right time.
In a statement to The Times-Picayune, the Saints player said he hugged the young driver, assured him everything would be OK and then prayed with him.
“There’s definitely a reason his life got saved,” Loewen said. “It’s unreal.”
Not many details about the condition of the accident victim have been released, but as of Monday, New Orleans Police Department spokesman Aaron Looney said he is expected to recover from his injuries.