Fran and Patricia Mahan of the Village of Buttonwood are counting their blessings after suffering injuries in a van crash Sunday afternoon on the Florida Turnpike.
They were passengers in a Village Airport Van that was slammed into by a Chevrolet Trailblazer at Exit 304 which connects to U.S. Hwy. 301 in Wildwood.
The crash pushed the airport van up against the guardrail, trapping all seven passengers inside. The driver was able to get out through his door.
The Mahans were in the passenger row directly behind the driver’s seat. Fran Mahan flew forward hitting his forehead on the windshield.
Emergency crews rushed to the scene and had to cut off the van’s rear doors. Then they had to cut out the seats, one by one.
“It seemed to take forever,” Patricia Mahan said. “It was excruciatingly hot.”
However, the Mahans have high words of praise for their rescuers, from the Wildwood police officers who stayed and spoke to them while they were trapped in the van to the EMTs who treated them with great professionalism.
The Mahans said they had to be carefully removed from the van and placed on body boards with neck and head braces.
From the scene of the crash Fran Mahan was transported to Ocala Regional Medical Center and Patricia Mahan was transported to Leesburg Regional Medical Center. A relative transported Fran Mahan back to The Villages after he was released. Patricia Mahan was picked up at LRMC by a taxi from Village Airport Van and dropped off at her front door.
Jack Pike, who has been with Village Airport Van for a year and half, was behind the wheel Sunday afternoon.
His boss, Dan McCarthy Jr., said Pike did everything he could to keep the passengers safe.
“Our van driver was phenomenal,” Patricia Mahan added.
Alice Thein of the Village of Belle Aire had flown home from Atlanta where she had been babysitting her 5-year-old grandson.
She was the only one in the van who did not go to a hospital.
“My husband is a physician and he was waiting for me,” she said. “I just had a cut on the bridge of my nose.”
The company has already hundreds of thousands of passengers in more than 11,000 trips back and forth to the Orlando International Airport each year.
A preliminary accident report from the Florida Highway Patrol has identified the owner of the Trailblazer as Jorge M. Romero of Tucker, Ga.