WILSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WTVF) — A family is grateful strangers acted quickly to help a woman trapped in a vehicle for hours.
Frances Mathis of Smithville was on her way to work when she wrecked into a deep embankment early Monday morning.
Her son, Bradley Alverson, told NewsChannel 5 that she hit a horse and donkey on Highway 96 near Statesville Road some time after leaving her home at around 5 a.m.
The animals died at the scene but the owners have yet to be found.
He received a call from her manager who was concerned that she never showed up to her job. Alverson said his mother never misses work and would always communicate with management if she was close to being late.
Her car flipped upside down and stayed that way for the next three hours.
Alverson suspects she crashed around 5:30 a.m. He and other relatives began searching for her after receiving the call, but it wasn’t until roughly 8:30 a.m. when a Tennessee Department of Transportation worker found Mathis trapped and unconscious.
“Then a neighbor that was close by came to help her get out of the car and they’re the ones who called 911,” Alverson said. “I was horrified, it blows me away when they told me.”
Brad Hayes and his wife were the ones who helped respond before the Wilson County Sheriff’s Office and Tennessee Highway Patrol arrived.
Alverson said he is thankful for everyone who helped to assist his mother.
“It could have been hours before anybody found her. Nobody could see the car so I owe those guys everything in the world, they found my mom,” Alverson stressed.
Mathis was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she was in stable condition at the intensive care unit. She fractured her right wrist and possibly her arm, and had minor bleeding on the brain.
