Sheriff's Deputy Lifts Car To Free Pinned VA Woman: Video

GLOUCESTER COUNTY, VA — A Virginia sheriff’s deputy, who earlier this year received a Top Cop Award in the state, is being celebrated again for lifting — on his own — an overturned vehicle just enough to let a woman escape serious injury.

Gloucester County Sheriff’s Deputy Jon Holt was responding to a report of an overturned vehicle on the night of May 7. A bodycam video released by the sheriff’s office shows Holt helping the people inside the vehicle.

“The driver was laying underneath the vehicle with her head pinned by the sunroof,” the sheriff’s office said Tuesday in a statement. “Seeing the trauma her child was witnessing, Deputy J. Holt went into overdrive.”

A boy whose identity has been blurred from the video released by the Gloucester sheriff’s office can be seen inside the vehicle crying and pleading with the deputy to help his mother.

“She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe,” the boy tells the deputy as he repeatedly yells, "mommy, mommy!"

Holt asks the boy to get out of the overturned vehicle. The video then goes dark as Holt can be heard straining as he tries to lift the vehicle off the woman.

“Through sheer will and determination due to fearing the female may succumb to her circumstance in front of her panic-stricken child, Deputy J. Holt took quick action and was able to physically lift the vehicle up enough for the driver to maneuver her head out to safety,” the sheriff’s office said.

Gloucester County is located in the Middle Peninsula of Virginia, with Yorktown to the south and Kilmarnock across the Rappahannock River to the north.

Prior to this incredible feat, Holt had received both the local and regional Top Cop Awards from the Greater Hampton Roads Regional Crime Line in February for his commitment to public safety after saving the lives of two people from a burning house in March 2020.

“The GCSO would like to share a portion of Dep. J. Holt’s body camera video as it captured this tremendous act,” the sheriff’s office said.