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A pair of college basketball players sprang into action after two vehicles were left submerged Tuesday when a sudden sinkhole opened up beneath them in Nebraska.
Sitting at a red light, a red pickup truck and a gray pickup truck waited to leave until they both fell instantly as the road collapsed.
It is unclear what caused the road to collapse. (UN Public Safety/TMX)
The driver of the van opened the door almost immediately, but the condition of the van driver was unknown.
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Seeing the danger, a purple car at the four-way stop stopped on the nearby sidewalk to help get the driver safely out of the van. Esra Kurban and Olivia Borsutzki, members of the University of Nebraska Omaha women’s basketball team, got out of the purple car.
“I thought it was an accident, and then I saw a man next to the car and I said, ‘Oh, actually the cars are on the ground,'” Borsutzki told Pak Gazette Digital.
(Left) University of Nebraska Omaha women’s basketball player Esra Kurban poses for a photo. (Right) University of Nebraska Omaha women’s basketball player Olivia Borsutzki poses for a photo. (Courtesy of Omaha Athletics)
For both players, there were no doubts.
“I stopped and said, ‘We need to help,'” Borsutzki added.
“No one was helping. People had their cell phones in their hands, they were walking by and they didn’t do anything. I was like, ‘Esra, we have to do something. I don’t know what we’re doing, but we have to do something.'”
Borsutzki said the person in the truck was “panicking” but grabbed him by the belt to pull him out of the sinkhole.
Dust could be seen as vehicles fell to the pavement. (UN Public Safety/TMX)
Kurban added: “I didn’t even know it could pass on a road. I was surprised to see it. But fortunately everything turned out fine after that.”
Neither driver was injured, police said.
“We are grateful to them for jumping into action and providing help quickly,” Officer Sarah Martier, an Omaha police spokeswoman, said in a statement to bystanders.
The next day, the Lady Mavericks became the only NBA, WNBA or Division I men’s or women’s team in the last 15 years to have one player with at least 40 points, another with at least 30 and another with 20 or more rebounds in the same game in their 85-74 victory over Oral Roberts.
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