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RIVERDALE — Myia DeHerrira said she and three friends were out celebrating her 17th birthday when they witnessed a car accident last week.
"Most of us, I think, just saw a car spinning out of control, bumpers flying," DeHerrira described.
She says the car just in front of them had run a red light, colliding with another vehicle, containing a mother and her two young children.
"Your instinct kicks in when you see something like that," 17-year-old Kiara Kirton said. "You just want to help and make sure everyone's OK."
"We just rushed to her side," 16-year-old Jenica Pender added. "Kind of opened up her doors to see who was all in the car, just to make sure everyone was alive and safe."
The three of them, and 17-year-old Coltin McClain, stayed by the woman's side for about two hours, until the scene was cleared of the two vehicles. But that's not all they did. The group noticed that the woman, Krystal Brown and her two children, were on their way home from the grocery store. The teens noticed many of the items were smashed up in the trunk. They say McClain had an idea.
"He ran to the ATM and pulled out 40 dollars," Kirton explained. "[He] tried to give it to her, and she said, 'No, no, no, I can't take that. Thank you so much, but I can't take that.'"
But the teens wouldn't take 'no' for an answer.
"When she was packing up her groceries, I said, 'Let's just like wrap it in a note, and put it in her groceries,'" Kirton recalled.
Brown found the note and the money, and posted a picture of them on her Facebook page, thanking the teens in a post. The posting has now been shared well over a hundred times.
The teens say given another chance, they'd reach out and help again.
"I think it's because if it happened to us and we were by ourselves, I think we would want someone to help us too," 16-year-old Jenica Pender said. "It was just the right thing to do."
Brown isn't the only one who is grateful for what the four teens did. Riverdale City mayor, Norm Searle, said the city council will honor the group in an upcoming council meeting.
