Man pushes fiancé out of harm’s way from crazed Charlottesville driver
A man was photographed flying through the air after a white supremacist drove into a crowd of protesters. That same man saved his fiancé's life.
On Saturday, a man was photographed flying through the air seconds after a white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter protesters, injuring about 20 people and killing one.
That man was Marcus Martin, who was marching with fiancée Marissa Blair and their friends when he saw the Dodge Challenger headed their way and pushed Blair out of the way. He saved Blair’s life and was himself hit by the car, which is when he was photographed in mid-air. When the car backed up, his shoe was dragged off.
Martin survived but suffered a broken leg, while Blair live-streamed the whole thing.
Later, in speaking to The Daily Mail, Blair recalled what happened. She said that, only moments before it happened, they had been chanting and laughing as they walked down the street.
–Vehicle plows through crowd of Charlottesville protesters, VA declares state of emergency–
“We hear a commotion from the top of the street. It happened so fast. I felt myself shoved out of the way. [Martin] had pushed me out of the way,” she said. “It was so fast. All he could think was to push me. He saved me then he was under the car. I checked myself and then immediately thought, where’s Marcus? I started looking where the car had hit people. I saw his hat had blood all over it but he wasn’t there. I found him with no blood on him.”
She also recalled how she found out that her friend, Heather Heyer, had died.
“We were taken to the hospital and I overheard someone say that the heavyset woman who they were doing CPR on had died,” she recalled. “I started asking around but I knew that it was my friend Heather. She had been standing right in front of Marcus.”
“It was senseless. People said we were wrong for being there but it was that guy [driver] who was wrong. Why would anyone think that it’s okay to do this? He rammed into us,” Blair said.
She added, “I’m still numb. My friend is dead. Heather was with us because this is what Heather believed in. She died standing up for what she believed in. We had been witnessing everything that was going on. We’ve been here for it. We couldn’t have hate groups walking around our city with no peaceful opposition. We knew the risk we were taking. But we said they aren’t going to do this anymore.”
