WEST HAVEN, Conn. — When avoiding collisions, chauffeurs must be able to think fast and react even faster. On the early morning of Feb. 10, Andrew Okoski, a chauffeur working for Hy’s Limousine Worldwide Transportation, was driving a pregnant woman to JFK airport when they narrowly avoided a snowplow and truck crashing on the Van Wyck Expressway. Thanks to his actions, they managed to not be the third vehicle in the accident…but that’s not the end of the story.
Okoski didn’t just save her life, but also one of the driver’s involved in the accident as well. “While my first thought was to save my limo and client, I wanted to make sure the other two drivers were safe,” he says. After ensuring the plow driver was awake and alert, he walked over to the truck driver and noticed he was unconscious.
After going back to get the plow driver to help him, both worked to rescue the other driver. “There was diesel leaking all over the place,” Okoski explains. “I broke the glass of the windshield of the truck, cut his seatbelt off, pulled him out, and dragged him as far away from the vehicle as quickly as possible because we weren’t sure if it was going to explode.”
Okoski waited for the passed out driver to come to, told him to have a good rest of his day, and left with his client to make it to the airport. Incredibly enough, she made her flight on time.
Before he became a chauffeur, Okoski served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was a taxi driver; he’s been working for Hy’s Limousine for about a year and a half. When asked what made him go back for the other drivers, he says, “I guess some of [my military training] is still inside of me.”
Matt Levine, the owner of the company, said he wasn’t made aware of the situation until way after the fact, which he says is a credit to Okoski.
“What really amazes me is you don’t think many chauffeurs would go out of their way to do something like this,” Levine says. “We only found out about it because the dispatcher was aware of the accident. When [Okoski] came back, he didn’t say much, so we didn’t really think anything of it. However, when we contacted the client to make sure everything was alright, she was the one who alerted us to what happened. It’s very possible he saved that man’s life.”
While Levine believes many operators think finding and retaining good chauffeurs is a difficult part of the job, he says this event reveals some are really amazing people.
Keywords
accidents chauffeur behavior chauffeur profiles Connecticut operators Lexi Tucker Matt Levine WebXclusive
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