Orlando woman saved by 4 Bishop Moore students donates $44K to school in their names

ORLANDO, Fla. — An Orlando woman credits four Bishop Moore Catholic High School athletes for saving her life 1½ years ago when she became pinned beneath a pickup truck in the College Park neighborhood.

Susan Gentry said she was trying to cross Edgewater Drive at West Smith Street when she was struck.

"I don't really look at that corner," she said. "It's still kind of hard to drive through (that intersection)."

Thomas Floyd Connors was eating at a nearby Tijuana Flats restaurant with three friends when he witnessed the crash.

"It was almost like, 'No way. Did I really just see someone get hit by a vehicle like that?'" he said.

Connors said he ran into the restaurant to call his friends over for help.

"I was, like, 'Boys, this is going to sound crazy, but there's a woman trapped under a truck outside. We gotta save her,'" he said.

"We ran outside, and I still didn't really know what was going on until we reached the truck," Andrew Cannon said.

"And someone started screaming, 'Lift the truck. Lift the truck,'" Tripp Cannon said.

"And that's when they lifted the truck, and I pulled her out from underneath," Andrew Cannon said.

"Once we lifted the car and Andrew pulled her out, my heart just sank," Mario Hernandez said.

Gentry said she had several broken bones.

"I just recognize how different everything could have been," she said. "The fact that I have all these moments with my kids and my family -- there's not enough money to put a price on that."

As a token of her gratitude, Gentry and her husband are donating $44,000 to the school in the names of the four students who saved her life.

The Cannon-Connors-Hernandez Endowment will be presented during a ceremony Wednesday evening. It will help fund the construction of a classroom in a new athletics building at the school.

Cox Media Group