The helicopter was flying low over Sacramento Highway 50. The helicopter was rocketing toward the earth below.

The flight was losing altitude, heading directly into eight lanes of traffic below; directing into thousands of motorists and commuters.

Kenneth De Crescenzo saw it all happen. “When it was coming down,” he said, “I looked at it and said, ‘This isn’t good…’”

It was the opposite of good. The aircraft was a medical helicopter, with a three-person crew of EMTs, consisting of a pilot, a nurse, and a paramedic. The crew had just saved a life, only minutes earlier, offloading a critical patient at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.

It took only seconds for the helicopter to lose control and strike the pavement. The boom could be heard for miles. It was a crashing, roaring, twisting, scraping of metal, scuffling along the highway. Incredibly, the helicopter pilot struck no cars.

Traffic came to a halt.

People jumped out of vehicles.

Isabella Lorenzo was taking her grandson home when it happened.

“I thought it was going to land,” she said, “and it kept going down lower and it just nosedived. And when it nosedived, we all just was in shock.”

The helicopter lay on the highway. Inert. A mangled mess of metal and bent rotor blades.

One of the crew was lying on the pavement. One crewmember was stuck in the cockpit. The other crew-woman was trapped beneath the wreckage.

Onlookers could hear screaming coming from beneath the wreckage.

“Someone’s stuck!” somebody shouted.

Samaritans were already racing toward the helicopter. Most were waiting for the air to fill with the smell of gasoline, waiting for the aircraft to maybe explode, or catch fire perhaps. But there were no flames.

Minutes after the crash, fire-department Capt. Peter Vandersluis was on the scene. He heard the crew-woman’s voice, she was pinned beneath the wreckage.

They needed to move the helicopter. But how? How do you move 8,000 pounds?

And so it was, on an average weeknight, somewhere in California, a team of 15 random people volunteered to lift the helicopter. A gaggle of bystanders, both male and female, gathered beneath the belly of the great wreckage. Feet planted. Hands ready.

Capt. Vandersluis shouted, “Lift!”

The helicopter slowly rose from the ground. A little at a time. Inch by inch.

Fifteen ordinary people. Motorists on their way home. They moved an estimated 7,903 pounds. With bare hands.

“Lift!” the captain shouted again.

The wreckage was hoisted higher.

“Crews were able to get her out,” said fire captain Justin Sylvia. “All three victims were transported within 20 minutes of arriving on scene, which is remarkable. Those stats are just not seen.

“I think without the help of the community tonight, this could have been a lot different outcome for that individual. Luckily, people are good…”

Read that last sentence again if you need.