After a long day at the office, Jane Hodgson was on her way home and looking forward to relaxing with a nice cup of tea. While driving, she noticed that there was a car pulled over at the side of the road and a crowd had started to gather around someone who was lying on the ground.

Jane, who had completed first aid at the work course with the British Red Cross, pulled over to see if she could do something and it turned out to be lucky for the victim.

Describing the scene she saw, Jane says, “A crowd of onlookers gathered at the scene. A couple of young men were cream-faced and looking lost. They were completely terrified. When I walked up, first-aid kit in hand, they said, ‘You’re a first aider — Oh thank goodness.’ They were so shocked that they hadn’t even thought to call an ambulance yet.”

A young girl called Jenny was lying there. It turned out that the teen had been hit by a car and gone over the handlebars of her bike, landing on her head and shoulder.

“I was worried because she had not been wearing a helmet when she got knocked down, and I thought that she should not be moved as I couldn’t be sure about a spinal (脊柱) injury, but after looking her over, in relief, I felt fairly confident that she had escaped relatively unharmed. Even so, as time passed and we continued to wait for an ambulance, the amount of pain the girl was in was increasing. To avoid the risk of her going into shock I kept her talking. We chatted about her boyfriend and anything I could think of to keep her mind off the pain. She squeezed (捏) my hand when the pain got too much and this helped,” describes Jane.

Thinking back, Jane says, “I never did find out what happened to the girl. Apart from the boyfriend I wasn’t thanked by anyone else, but that’s OK. For me, knowing that in a small way I helped that girl through what was a frightening experience is all the reward I need. It felt great to know I’d made a difference.”

“Mayday! We got Mayday!”Frank Pisano screamed over the microphone to the air control tower at the airport．One of the two engines on his plane had failed，and he was now going down towards one of the busiest highways in America—Interstate 405，just south of Los Angeles—and there was no stopping it．

Driving south on the 405，near the airport’S runway，was John Meffert，a fire department captain．He was heading home from his shift when suddenly a low—flying plane caught his eye．After he took a second glance，a thought crossed his mind：“This plane’s going to hit me．”

He was right．The plane slammed into the road，popped up a few feet，and then clipped the front of Meffert’s car．It finally stopped after hitting the divider(隔栏)．Meffert pulled over．He was unhurt，and his car had received only a large scratch，so he turned his attention to the plane．He ran towards the smoke，and then he saw Frank’s wife，Janan Pisano，pop her head up on the passenger side．

By the time Meffert reached the aircraft，part of it was on fire and Janan，who was covered in blood，was on the wing trying to pull her husband from the wreck．Meffert，afraid the plane would explode，guided her to safety behind it．Then，he ran back for Frank，who had been knocked out by the initial crash，lying across both seats．

Meffert carefully positioned himself under the pilot’s arms and lifted him from the cockpit．Then he dragged the pilot off the wing and carried him to safety，where they could see the plane in flames．

The Pisanos spent three weeks in the hospital．Remarkably，Meffert’s car was the only one hit by the plane．Had Meffert been a second or two faster，Frank said，the left propeller(螺旋桨))would have ripped the top off his car and killed him．

“I play all the what-ifs—going slower，going faster．It could have been a very different result，”Meffert said．“We just had a lot of angels．”

A self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in a late-night accident in Tempe, Arizona, police said on Monday. The accident is believed to be the first pedestrian death involving the technology of autonomous vehicles.

The gray SUV had an operator in the driver’s seat and was traveling at about 40 miles per hour in autonomous mode when it struck a woman who was walking across the street late Sunday night, Tempe police said. The pedestrian was rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead from her injuries.

“The City of Tempe has been supportive of autonomous vehicle testing because of the innovation and promise that the technology may offer in many areas, including transportation options for disabled residents and seniors,” Tempe Mayor, Mitchell said in the statement. “Testing must occur safely. All indications we have had in the past show that traffic laws are being obeyed by the companies testing here. Our city leadership and Tempe police will pursue any and all answers to what happened in order to ensure safety moving forward.”

Self-driving cars have been praised by technology companies as the wave of the future. Autonomous cars are already being in more than 30 cities around the world, with companies investing more than $80 billion into research and development.

“Everyone recognized that someone was going to die in a crash involving an autonomous vehicle eventually,” Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina who studies risks in automated driving systems, told NBC News. “As good as that technology tries to be, mistakes can happen, or it may be one of the small fraction of crashes. I just think everybody kind of hoped that one wouldn’t come this soon.”

Smith added that because federal and state agencies don’t have the resources to monitor individual vehicles, the responsibility for safety falls on the individual companies running the technology.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced that a four-person team has been sent to Tempe to investigate the crash.