Emily Chan
Car accidents are no joke, and they can change the direction of people’s lives forever. What might start out as a road trip, an outing to the grocery store, or a drive to work can suddenly end up a nightmare.
And that’s precisely what happened to James Bennefield one fateful Christmas Eve. James works as an EMT in Newnan, Georgia, and is a father of three boys.
He enjoys his line of work because he has the opportunity to help people, although he doesn’t make much money at his job.
He had picked up an extra shift, so on December 24th of last year, he was on the way to work when the accelerator on his car got stuck.
No matter what he tried, the car would not stop. In fact, it began speeding up even more. James dialed 911 for help, but he could hardly hear the dispatcher over the roar of the vehicle’s engine.
He quickly made the selfless decision to crash the car in order to avoid hurting others who might be on the road.
“Being a holiday, the traffic was light, but I knew I was approaching a busier area with some tight turns,” wrote James on his GoFundMe page.
“I knew if I was going to die, I didn’t want to kill anyone else.”
At the time he went off the road, his car was going over 120 miles per hour. When officers arrived at the scene, they found that the passenger side was severely damaged due to the vehicle rolling over several times before coming to a stop.
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