Good Samaritan thanks father of man trying to help crash victim

DALLAS - A woman who stopped to help after a hit-and-run crash says she owes her life to a heroic stranger. Sadly, he did not survive.

Lyndsee Longoria was with her half-sister, her boyfriend and her twin boys on the Marvin D. Love Freeway Sunday night. They rolled up on the aftermath of a hit-and-run accident that left a Ford Expedition disabled on the road.

“It's a three-lane highway, and he was blocking two. And his car was sideways,” Longoria recalled. “We almost hit him.”

Longoria and the other in her car jumped out to push the Expedition out of traffic but they weren't strong enough. That’s when Michael Donnelly stopped to help.

“He said, 'Y'all ladies don't need to be out here pushing on this car. Do you need some help?'” Longoria said.

Another car then came along, didn’t see the group and ran into Longoria and Donnelly.

“It was like a flash of light,” Longoria said. “I didn't see anything. I didn't feel it. I just knew that I had been hit."

She does remember one other thing.

"In the midst of the accident, someone had grabbed my shirt and pulled me,” she said.

Now out of surgery for a broken leg at Dallas Methodist, Longoria knows it was Donnelly who did that. He was rushed to the same hospital, but he did not survive.

Because of Donnelly’s heroic actions, Longoria said she gets to raise her own sons.

Donnelly was the son of Rich Donnelly, a former coach for the Texas Rangers and several other major league baseball teams. Longoria called him in Ohio to thank him and tell him about his son's actions.

“Your son was my hero,” she told Donnelly’s father. “He is my hero.”

“If it wasn't for him, I would not be here today,” Longoria said. “I'd be a proud mother if I got that phone call and somebody told me the same things that Michael's dad heard. 'Your son was a hero.'”

There was some confusion initially that Donnelly was with another person. Longoria said he was not. Her sister said the driver of the car that hit them apologized on the scene and prayed with them.

The driver of the car that caused the initial crash, someone in a black Cadillac coupe, got out of the car and ran. Dallas police are still looking for that person, who they said will face charges.