The injuries one man sustained trying to help another landed him in the Guinness Book of World Records.
For Matthew McKnight, a trained paramedic and Connellsville Township Volunteer firefighter, the recognition is bittersweet. He holds the record for the greatest distance thrown in a car accident.
On the evening of October 26, 2001, McKnight should have died when he stopped on his way home from work at Mercy Hospital to help people involved in a two-vehicle accident along the Parkway East outbound.
"I was rendering aid to the driver of the vehicle. I was bent over holding his airway open, holding his neck in line. And then a drunk driver was traveling at a high rate of speed and struck me on my right side and threw me 118 feet up the road," McKnight said.
The distance is the equivalent to dropping him from a 10-story building.
"I had a head injury, two dislocated shoulders, I broke the head off my left arm off, collapsed my left lung .. had what they call an open book pelvic fracture, I was broke twice in the front and once in the back and in the spine, a portion of the muscle from my right thigh was ripped out of my body, and my lower right leg was just pretty much shattered," he explained. McKnight was told he would never walk again, but his determination would prove doctors wrong. He is now walking and finally back to a normal life.
With news video.
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