NBC Dallas-Fort Worth – Not many people would pull over on a busy highway in the middle of the night to help a complete stranger. Not many people were Michael Anthony Love.
Love pulled over at 1 a.m. on U.S. Highway 67 to help a woman who, with six sleeping children and a cousin in the car, ran out of gas on the highway.
Love took the time to assist Rishonda King, but before he could pour the gas into her car another driver swerved and hit him.
King said Love threw her out of the way, saving her life before he was struck and killed.
“He says, ‘MOVE!’ He grabs my arm and flung me to the back of my car,” said King. “He was an angel. My guardian angel.”
Love later died at the hospital. The driver who struck him left the scene of the crash. King said it looked like a truck that hit and killed Love. The truck would have front end damage on the passenger side.
Love’s friends and family members told NBC 5 that the 47-year-old was the type of guy that would help anyone.
“He probably saw those kids in the back and said these kids need this mom so, he basically sacrificed himself for her,” said Jerome Sheffield, Love’s best friend and fraternity brother in Omega Psi Phi at Prairie View A&M University.
“I don’t know how the rest of my life is going to be now, from here on out, I don’t know,” Sheffield said, holding back tears.
Barbara Pettis, Love’s cousin, hopes the driver comes forward and accepts responsibility.
“I know you’re not able to sleep at night. I know this has to be bothering you. So we’re asking you, this family, this Love family that you devastated, we’re asking that you to do the right thing,” Pettis said.
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