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Women in critical condition after car crash in Virginia Beach

Posted at 11:55 PM, Apr 13, 2014
and last updated 2014-04-13 23:55:38-04

Virginia Beach, Va. - According to police, 32-year-old Bryan Browder is responsible for a horrific crash that happened around 3:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon near Town Center.

A woman was trapped inside a mangled SUV after it collided with Browder’s vehicle.

"I was on my way down the boulevard towards town center and the next thing I know is I saw this car and it just started to flip," Nichole Raffa explained to NewsChannel 3.

"The impact itself was so loud,” Marco Rivera said.

"I see the car flipping 5 or 6 times and as soon as we heard that we just started running towards it,” Aaron Sampe shares.

Raffa, Sampe and Rivera were the first ones who took action to help. Inside they say they found a woman trapped and noticed the SUV's airbags didn't deploy.

"Coming up and seeing someone so helpless so hurt on that verge of possible life and death I came up her lips were blue she wasn`t breathing at first her mouth was full of blood," Raffa explained.

Raffa said she found her driver’s license in the mess and kept calling the woman's name to keep her fighting.

“Knowing that it`s a person and not just someone’s child or someone’s mom or someone`s wife,” Raffa said. “It`s really hard because you see someone about your age and it`s like their life changed instantly they were driving down the road minding their own businesses and the next thing you know their lives change forever."

Sampe and Rivera are combat life savers in the Army. They say they are trained for this.

Although they are trained, they say no amount of training could prepare them for what they saw today.

"When you are actually sitting there and you see it happen in real life it`s a whole different spectrum," Rivera shares.

"It`s just really mind boggling how fast your day can change and how just for that split second your whole life can change for the better or the worse," Sampe said.

Police shut down Virginia Beach Blvd. for several hours Sunday afternoon.

Browder, the driver of the vehicle, was charged with failure to yield to right of way.

The woman trapped inside the SUV is in critical condition.