Maarten sees a crash on holiday and saves children: ‘You are a policeman everywhere’

“I suddenly heard a loud bang and saw a car fly by literally ten meters away and crash into a number of other parked cars,” Maarten said on Saturday morning. What followed was a ‘bizarre blow and a large cloud of dust’. “I saw a car on top of a number of other cars. I immediately ran over and shouted to someone nearby to call 911 immediately.”

I immediately heard the screaming of children coming from the car and I saw smoke coming from under the front of the car,” continues Maarten. “So no time to think long. I climbed onto one of the pickups the SUV had landed on top of. I saw a man shaking behind the wheel. The children crawled through the overturned car. “

Because of the smoke, the officer immediately realized: those children have to get out! But the doors of the car turned out to be deformed and could no longer be opened from the outside. “I got one of the children, the boy, to pull the lever. After pushing and pulling hard, the door opened and I was able to get the girl and the boy – I estimate 7 and 10 – years old – out of the SUV. Others took them to safety and I then tried to get to the man, who was not approachable. Unfortunately, this did not work. that the man was freed.”

The father and his son got off relatively well and were allowed to go home that same evening. The girl appeared to be in worse shape. She had broken her back in two places. She was then taken by helicopter to a larger hospital.

“What a bizarre event”, Maarten sighs. “You will act automatically. As if you are in uniform in your own country. But this was really in shorts and flip flops in Texas, USA. Later I received a thank you from the ‘sergeant’ in the police station for services rendered. So you see, you are a police officer always and everywhere. You automatically go into ‘trade mode’. Now back to ‘holiday mode’.”