Jerry Ramirez said he just wanted to help out.
The 18-year-old from Royse City, Texas, was driving down a road on April 13 with friends when he saw a wrecked truck that had rammed into a guardrail, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. The violent crash threw one person from the vehicle, police say, and injured two others who were inside. The driver wasn’t injured.
Ramirez said he naturally had to help out, and called 911 for help at around midnight.
“We ran over there,” Ramirez told Fox4. “By that time, I was on the phone with 911 explaining where we were, what happened and our backs were to both vehicles.”
While helping out, Ramirez heard the sound of his black Chrysler’s engine revving up — and saw it speeding away. That’s when he realized the driver of the crashed truck was missing, he said.
“We basically all realized who was in the car, and you put one and one together,” he told NBC.
Police say that driver is 29-year-old Delyn Stampf, according to Fox4. Ramirez said Stampf nearly hit him as he swerved away.
“I tried to motion for him to stop, but he accelerated,” the teen said. “I was able to move out of the way, luckily.”
Police say deputies chased after Stampf for about eight minutes before the 29-year-old crashed and totaled the teenager’s vehicle. According to NBC, Stampf died in the crash.
Ramirez created a GoFundMe page to cover the costs of getting a new car. He wrote that his insurance will not cover the cost because “the driver was an excluded driver from the policy of the vehicle he was driving.”
All three of the injured passengers in the truck were taken to the hospital and are expected to survive. One allegedly told police that they had been drinking before the crash, according to Fox4.
The teenager told NBC that he doesn’t regret anything.
“I’d give my car up any day,” he said, “to save someone’s life.”
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