Michael Carl Spence helped to save Octavia Malloy from being struck by a drifting automobile, Highland Falls, New York, April 24, 2000. Octavia, 6, was sitting atop a child’s bicycle in the eight-foot-wide space between a car and a pickup truck that were parked along a street near the bottom of a steep hill. When the unattended car began to drift backward, downhill, toward the pickup, a man attempted to hold it back. Spence, 21, was in a yard bordering the scene, at a point about 12 feet from Octavia, when he saw the situation. He immediately ran between the two vehicles, grasped Octavia by the shoulder, and threw her out of the path of the car to where she landed safely on the street. The car then struck Spence before he could withdraw, pinning him briefly against the pickup. He, Octavia, and the other man were all taken to the hospital for treatment of their injuries, Spence’s including a cut to his right leg, from which he recovered.
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