Uber Driver Pulls NJ Mom Out Of Burning Car On Garden State Parkway

NEW JERSEY — A single mom of a 5-year-old boy is grateful after an Uber driver pulled her out of her burning car in the middle of the night on the Garden State Parkway last month, just days before Mother's Day.

While she still finds it difficult to talk about the crash, the Monmouth County mom, Tara, believes Matawan resident James Price should be recognized as a hero.

The ordeal began around 2 a.m. May 1 near milepost 112.2 in Middletown Township, according to the state police.

State troopers responded around 2:01 a.m. to a two-vehicle crash. A preliminary investigation revealed a Chrysler Pacifica struck the rear of a Mercedes as both were southbound, said a state police spokesperson. The Chrysler driver was taken to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.

What the report doesn't say is that James Price, a recent graduate of Rutgers University's social work program, pulled the driver out of her car just before it became engulfed in flames, according to both parties.

Price waited for police to arrive and asked if they needed information, but they told him they did not, he said. Price left but later wondered what happened to the woman, who said her name was Tara and that she was the single mom of a 5-year-old boy.

Price couldn't stop thinking about Tara.

Days after the crash, he contacted police to see if they could tell him how she was doing, he says. But they said they couldn't do so because of privacy issues. He asked them to pass along a message, but they said they could not, he said.

So Price posted a short note in Facebook groups in Monmouth County to see if anyone knew Tara (which is how Patch became aware of the incident and reached out to Price).

As it turned out, Price and Tara had a mutual acquaintance who put them in touch within days, and they talked via direct messaging.

After Patch reached out to learn Price's story, he explained what happened that night.

Heading Home From Essex County

Price said he was driving for Uber early May 1 and dropped someone off in Newark. Then, he decided to call it a night.

He headed home to the Cliffwood Beach section of Matawan, southbound on the Parkway.

"It's still pretty surreal," Price said. "I saw a car on fire near the embankment. There was another car flipped on its side, near the median. This is the crazy part. There had to be at least 15 people. You could tell it just happened. There were 15 people at the guardrail."

He said, "I pulled over to help. There was no law enforcement yet or anything. Everyone was standing there in shock. They said, 'Someone's down there.'"

Prince continued, "I ran down the embankment. You could hear her screaming, like a death-curdling, 'I'm going to die' scream."

"The car was like 85 percent 90 percent on fire," he said. "I opened the tailgate and she was in the front still. I kept screaming to her to come to the back, the tailgate door of the SUV. The car was upside down. It just opened up, surprisingly. I didn't think it would be that simple, honestly. She climbed over the rear seats and to the back."

"We locked arms," Price added. "I dragged her up. She was in total shock."

He added that once he got her near the road, other people helped pull her up.

He said he thinks no one helped at first because of the "bystander effect. No one does something until the first person does something. A couple people helped me bring her back up. I was just blessed beyond belief."

He said, "She was hugging me, crying. She said, 'I'm a single mother.'"

James later remembered her son's name and that the woman's name was Tara, but not much else.

He said he was not sure what to do right after that. No one wanted his information, he said, and he even got yelled at. So he headed away.

When he could not contact Tara days later, he posted a sentence or two on Facebook to find her.

"Thank god for Facebook," he said. "My friend Sarah, she's a social worker. She said, 'I think I found her. She's in one of my mom groups.' The first thing she said was, 'James!'"

Price said Tara told him she was communicating with OnStar while trapped, and she asked them to tell her son she loved him.

Price said he's not sure what compelled him to respond, but "My dad died when I was 14. I had a tough life. I had a really bad car accident in September and I should have been dead, but I made it. It made me wonder why I was still alive. My dad was a firefighter. This was like running into a fire, not away."

When contacted in May, Tara — who asked that her last name not be used — said she wanted to talk about what Price did but was in pain and tired. "I want to make a thoughtful statement," she said.

Weeks later, she said, "I honestly just don’t even know what to say. James saved my life. I was trapped inside the car. He heard me screaming for help, trying to escape the burning car by breaking through the windshield. By the time he got there, there was a pretty large brush fire too. He opened my SUV’s lift gate and pulled me out, all the way to the top of the embankment, right before the car exploded."

She added, "I remember the look on his face when he opened the lift gate. He looked scared. The fire was so big by that point and I was still by the windshield trying to break out."

She said, "He didn’t have to stop, but he did. He could’ve ran off after he opened the door, but he didn’t. He yelled at me to climb to him, waited for me, and basically dragged me to safety because I couldn’t do it myself."

Tara said it was still hard to talk about what happened, but not because she is in pain.

"It’s just," she said, "how do you put this stuff, how brave and selfless he was in that moment, how grateful I am, into words?"

"I don’t feel like I really expressed it well," she said. "Nothing I thought of sounded good enough."

Price said that he has mentioned what happened to a few friends, but they didn't understand the severity of the incident or respond much. But he said he's just glad Tara's alive.

Tara said she's glad, too, especially because of her son. She confirmed that she asked an OnStar operator to tell her son she loved him.

"The fire was pretty big by then," she said. "I didn’t think help would arrive in time so I told her to make sure she told my son I love him."

About Price, she said, "I think he should be recognized. The [authorities] wouldn’t even tell him I was okay, let alone thank him for being a hero."

Recounting what happened, she added, "If that’s the not definition of a hero, I don’t know what is."

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