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Magnolia mother honored by SFD for giving aid and comfort to dying man

The Seattle Fire Department is planning to honor a Magnolia mother for her courageous attempt to save a dying man after a violent crash in front of her home.
After hearing the thunderous crash Monday afternoon, Elizabeth Servey and her 13-year-old son joined neighbors running to help the driver of a mangled car which had just been T-boned by a pickup so hard, it was pushed more than 100 feet.
"I was going into that car, whether it was through the window, if I had to break it open with a knife," she said. "Inside, I couldn't see them, I didn't know how many people were in the car."
Elizabeth says when she approached the crash at Thorndyke Avenue West and Thorndyke Place, she leaned on first aid training from serving nine years in the U.S. Army. When she and her neighbors forced the door open, she said the unconscious driver was wrapped in wreckage.
"When I first got in the vehicle it was more of, 'Can you hear me? Can you speak?'"
She asked her son -- a Boy Scout with first aid training -- to hand her gauze and supplies from a first aid kit he grabbed in the house, but she said the driver had large bleeding wounds she could not stop.
"Once there was no way to save the gentleman, and you knew it right away, the second thing, is to say, 'You're not alone,'" she said.
She'd been through this before in the military. “You never forget the first time it happens," she said. She spent the next minutes speaking comforting words to the dying driver, and she prayed over him before first responders arrived.
"When you're in the military you always hear, 'To honor the dead, serve the living, take care of the living,' and that's what we're trying to do here," she said.
She and her twin sons made and installed a sign asking drivers to slow down.
"It's a residential street with a lot of dogs and seniors and kids."
Elizabeth says the intersection is one of several along Thorndyke Avenue West where drivers can't see oncoming traffic because of odd angles and parked cars. She's one of many urging the city to make the intersection safer with better lighting and visibility.
KIRO-7 looked into previous complaints written to the Seattle Department of Transportation over the years, and several referred to the difficulty turning from angled streets onto Thorndyke. One read: "It's a car accident waiting to happen. There's literally no visibility. I close my eyes when I make that left turn every day just hoping there isn't a speeding car on Thorndyke."
Elizabeth agrees. "If there were a crosswalk, or if there were more lights, if there was signage just saying 'blind corner' or 'slow down' or anything. It would make this (intersection) safer."
Seattle police say they arrested the driver of the pickup truck at the scene, but released him later, pending the outcome of their investigation.
(KIRO-7 partnered with the coverage from the Magnolia Voice for this story)