Valerie Tressler of Mt. Pleasant was enjoying a day of shopping on Sunday. But before the afternoon ended, she became a hero to one local father.
Tressler and her daughter Jade and great-nephew Cassius Bundridge came upon Sunday's accident scene just seconds after it occurred.
"We had been out shopping at PetSmart and we were coming down Main Street. The light had just turned and I was going forward when I looked up and saw that the car in front of me was stopped."
The driver of the stopped vehicle was waving to her.
"She yelled, 'You can't down there,'" Tressler said. "I looked down the street and couldn't believe what I saw."
Tressler said she threw her car in reverse but quickly stopped.
It wasn't traffic that stopped her but another frightening sight.
"I looked up and saw this man with blood all over his face running up the street and he was carrying a little kid," Tressler said. "She was also bleeding. It looked like her little lip was split."
Tressler acted as a good Samaritan and, without hesitation, threw open her car doors.
"I yelled for him to get in, that we would take him to the hospital," Tressler said.
Tressler didn't realize that she knew the man until she looked in her rearview mirror.
Michael Lint, bleeding from his injuries, was clutching his daughter Cali James, a customer at her beauty salon, Val's Family Styling.
"I couldn't believe that I knew them and that I cut her hair," Tressler said.
Tressler took the pair to the Excela Frick emergency room.
"I think that it's amazing that Val did that," Mt. Pleasant Mayor Jerry Lucia said. "Lint wanted to get to the hospital as quickly as he could because he was worried about his daughter so he thought he'd just run. Val picked them up and took them to the hospital and not a lot of people would open up their doors to someone who was covered in blood and running. I just think that's something."
