SHAWNEE, Kan. – A Kansas man stopped in the rain to check on crash victims over the weekend, but that’s when one of the drivers took off in the good Samaritan’s truck.
Randy Rood, 65, was returning from his usual quick trip to his neighborhood gas station with his ice tea Saturday afternoon when the crash happened.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw this silver car zooming down Halsey Street, and it ran the stop sign and crossed over Johnson Drive and hit the couple in the SUV right in front of me,” Rood told WDAF.
The force of the wreck sent both the wayward car and SUV he was following into an overflow parking lot area off Johnson Drive in Shawnee. Rood pulled into the parking lot and quickly jumped out of his truck to check on those victims. He didn’t realize he left the truck running and the keys in the ignition.
Rood said the driver who caused the wreck was already out of his car.
“I kind of glanced over and asked if he was OK, and he said yes,” Rood said.
The couple in the SUV initially weren’t moving much behind their airbags that had deployed.
“Just as I asked her if she was all right. I heard tires squeal and looked up and my truck was off to the races going across Johnson Drive and heading back up Halsey at a high rate of speed,” Rood said.
He said he didn’t get a great look at the suspect, describing him as a tall, thin man with long dark hair. He took off in a 2011 White Ford F150 that has black paint from a previous fender bender down the passenger side.
Rood, who began his career as a paramedic, is just glad the couple in the SUV weren’t seriously injured.
“I would stop again. I would probably just make sure I turn my truck off and took the keys this time,” he said.
Shawnee police couldn’t be reached for comment on whether the vehicle the driver crashed and left behind was stolen.