Lori Rabier can only remember May 5 with flashes.
There is a flash of receiving help from an emergency medical worker and a flash of moving around the emergency department. But missing her memory is the most important part of that day, when a mob of strangers risked their lives to save her after she fainted while returning from work in South Florida.
Instead, Ms. Rabyor, like hundreds of thousands of others, saw the dramatic rescue only in footage from road cameras that police in Boynton Beach, Florida, shared last week in an attempt to identify the good Samaritans who ran in front of her car to stop her as she crosses a slow, dangerous road through a busy intersection.
At a ceremony hosted by the police department on Friday, Ms. Rabier met for the first time with many of her rescuers, including the woman who snatched a dumbbell from her car and the man who used it to break one of the car’s windows. of Mrs. Rabyor. (Mrs. Rabier returned the dumbbell.)
The rescuers were almost all strangers, except for Janet Rivera, who worked with Ms. Rabyor, and noticed that Ms. Rabyor’s car was drifting down the sidewalk, obstructing traffic.
Ms. Rivera, 51, decided in seconds that something was wrong, left her car in the parking lot, ran into traffic and called for help, waking others up to help.
“Thank God for this woman,” said 63-year-old Mrs. Rabier of West Palm Beach, Florida, in a telephone interview Saturday. “I can never repay her.”
Ms Rabyor said she was starving in preparation for a colonoscopy and lost consciousness while returning from work at City Shade Company, a manufacturer of custom blinds and awnings. She has worked in the drapery department there with Ms. Rivera for about three years. She said she was hospitalized for two days after the rescue because she was overhydrated while preparing for the procedure and depleted electrolytes and other essential minerals.
Ms Rabier said she was sitting with Ms Rivera at the ceremony on Friday, and when the rescue video was released, they talked about the man in the hat running in front of the car. Then the man sitting in front of her, Marco Bartolone, turned and said he was the man. Ms. Rabier said her acquaintance with the other good Samaritans was similar.
Ms Rivera, who also lives in West Palm Beach, said in an interview Saturday that her boss had contacted police to see if they had rescue workers because the company wanted to honor the people who helped. She said that when her husband and daughter saw the video, they told her they were proud, but also that she should be more careful.
Ms. Rivera said she told them, “If I was going to lose my life, then you would be proud of me because I saved a life after all.”
At Friday’s ceremony, Juan Chavez Jr., a staff sergeant in the U.S. military, said he intervened to help after seeing Ms. Rivera run and scream for an unconscious man.
Footage from the road camera shows Sergeant Chavez, dressed, running through the intersection as vehicles continue to pass through. He got in front of Mrs. Rabyor’s car to stop her, went back through the intersection to get her car, and then came back.
“After seeing the video, I thought, ‘That was pretty stupid,’ said Sergeant Chavez. “So, I have to play Frogger in real life.”
“It’s amazing,” he added, “how everyone came together to help someone in need without even knowing the person.”
Michael Edelstein introduced himself at the ceremony as the man who ran in front of the car and also tried unsuccessfully to break through one of its windows. others helped by directing traffic, he said.
Just over a minute after Ms. Rivera first escaped from her car, a man, David Formika, broke the window of Ms. Rabyor’s car with a dumbbell. Another man climbed out the window to unlock the front passenger door, police said.
The group then pushed the car to a nearby parking lot, where a nurse provided medical assistance until the fire arrived, police said.
Nurse Robin Fox was emotional at the ceremony as she downplayed her role in the rescue. She said she came in at the end and measured Ms. Rabyor’s heart rate.
“It was an honor for me to see this happen,” she said, “to witness this event in real time, and I’m glad everyone can see it.”
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