GLOUCESTER — Deputy Jon Holt often finds himself in the right place at the right time.
The Gloucester County sheriff’s deputy is being hailed as a hero for a second time now after saving a woman’s life by lifting an overturned vehicle off of her head.
On Friday, May 7, Holt was returning from a separate call at around 9:50 p.m. when he witnessed an SUV lose control and flip over on the side of the road.
“I heard the tires squeal and I started hearing the metal crunch. At that point I knew it was going to be a bad one,” he said.
In his body camera footage released by Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office, Holt can be heard telling dispatch that the car is “flipped upside down.” As he approaches the vehicle, a child screams in anguish that her mother is “stuck under the car.”
Inside the vehicle, Holt finds the woman’s son and the mother lying under the vehicle with her head pinned by the sunroof while her son is sitting in the overturned car screaming, “she can’t breathe.”
Holt acts quickly, telling the boy to exit the vehicle, before he single-handedly lifts it off of the woman.
“I could hear her take a big gasp of air and at that point she was able to self-extricate and start making her way out of the vehicle,” Holt recounts.
Holt said that after, he had the woman sit down, tried to keep her children calm and attempting to take their minds off of the accident. At that point, medics had arrived on scene.
The family also had a dog with them, who was located 12 hours later on a nearby resident’s front porch.
The woman had been trapped under the vehicle for approximately 45 seconds before Deputy Holt rescued her.
Though he hasn’t spoken to them, Holt said that the family has been released from the hospital and are doing well.
Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office posted the body camera footage and praised Holt for his heroic act in a May 18 social media post that has since reached thousands of people.
Holt, who joined the Gloucester department in 2014, said that this is just part of his duty.
“I’m just your average cop,” he said. “You know, I’m just out there doing my job, trying to make my community a better place.”
But this was not Holt’s first time being recognized for his courageous work.
In February, he was awarded both the local and regional Top Cop Awards from the Greater Hampton Roads Regional Crime Line for saving the lives of two individuals from a burning house in March 2020.
“When these things happen, I’m just always right in the area,” Holt said. “It’s just what we have to do.”
A Williamsburg native, Holt is a military veteran who served in Iraq and moved to Gloucester to live a quieter lifestyle.
“I don’t know if that’s quite working out for me,” he joked.
But Holt is committed to his small town.
“My big thing is I love my community,” he said. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything else. I’m glad to be out there serving it.”
You can see footage from Deputy J. Holt’s body camera below, courtesy of Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office.
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