Mableton Man Shares Story of Rescue

The roads were wet in Mableton on Monday. It had been raining all night.

Stefany Caicedo, 19 of Acworth, was driving south on Cooper Lake Road when she lost control of the car and veered into the opposite lane, where Denise Flores, 33 of Mableton, was driving.

The front end of Flores' car collided with the passenger side of Caicedo's gold 2001 Ford Explorer Sport Trac.

Kent Osborn, who has lived in the same house near Cooper Lake Road for the last decade, was driving to work as a physical therapist. Because of his fast-acting, he was able to pull 19-year-old from her car, and  with the help of other passersby, bring her to safety before the Explorer burned completely.

After hearing about the comments on South Cobb Patch calling him a hero, Osborn chuckled.

"A hero? Really? Yeah, I don't know about that," he said humbly as he recollected details from that morning.

He was driving down Cooper Lake Road, not far from his home and he pulled up on the crash and noticed two women walking.

It was not until later that he realized one of the women was helping the other, who was a victim of the crash.

They saw him and screamed for his help. Someone was trapped in her car and they couldn’t pull her out, they told him.

Within seconds, he was out of his car and peering into Caicedo's Explorer.

“The woman in the car, she looked comatose, not just unconscious,” Osborn said.

He reached into the car to help her.

Caicedo was unresponsive and her eyes were rolled to one corner.

“She was a ragdoll when I got to the car.”

He reached into the car to pull her out and felt blood.

“I got blood all over myself, and realized she was bleeding from the back of the head,” he explained. He held her head and supported her neck as he pulled her from the car.

“You could smell a fire was starting. Steam and smoke were coming from the hood (of the car.)”

By this time, other passersby had come in to offer support. They lifted the young woman and carried her away from the site of her car, which was crumpled and beginning to burn.

“We got her away from the car before it caught on fire. Some little explosions happened.”

The paramedics arrived on the scene.

Osborn said he saw some movement from Caicedo, but it was “not good movement.” It was convulsive arm straightening, like the result of a brain stem injury, similar to what someone in a coma might do, Osborn explained.

Osborn left the scene, canceled his first patient and went home to change clothes before heading to work.

He had seen someone killed just 200 yards away from the site of the crash 10 years ago. A car had flipped and the driver had been ejected from the car.

He was, however, saddened by the entire event.

“It’s saddening, but you just hope that the experts at the trauma center can make progress with her. Hopefully, they can help. It didn’t look really hopeful when I saw her.”

South Cobb Patch will continue to provide updates about this incident and the status of the victims.