VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A woman was pinned beneath a car after a vehicle drove onto an occupied restaurant patio in north Virginia Beach — and a bartender jumped into action to help.
Last week, News 3 shared the incident that happened the night of Nov. 4 at The Rustic Spoon on Pleasure House Road.
"There was a gentleman parked here on the handicapped spot," recalled Ryan Hines, co-owner of The Rustic Spoon, in an interview two days later. "He put the car in Drive instead of Reverse."
Surveillance video Hines provided showed what happened next: the car plowed through a fence surrounding the restaurant's patio, knocking over multiple tables including one occupied by two women. One of the women was pinned under the car.
"One of our bartenders, she kind of quarterbacked the whole thing and was talking to the lady, trying to keep her calm," Hines told News 3.
That bartender is Kate Coutherut, a veteran of the Virginia Beach restaurant industry who has worked at The Rustic Spoon for about a year.
"I was behind the bar cleaning and just heard a sound that was not fun to hear," Coutherut said.
At first, she didn't realize how serious the situation was.
"At first I didn't know there was anybody under the car," Coutherut said. "When I walked around, I was able to see the woman under the [table], under the car."
Coutherut crouched down and went to work.
"My first instinct was to assess her ABCs I guess. Was she alert? Was she bleeding? Was she breathing?" Coutherut said, crediting her past training and her instincts as a mom for helping her stay calm. "I used to be a water park supervisor and lifeguard so we ran circumstantial and situational drills."
She says that training, though long ago, came through in a tense situation — "I stayed to the side with her, got on 911, she was able to confirm she was able to breathe and she didn't know what kind of injuries she had at the time."
Medics and firefighters arrived quickly, jacked up the car, removed the woman from under it and sent her and the other woman she was with to the hospital. As Hines explained last week, she was treated and released the same night with some cuts, but no broken bones.
"(It was the) best-case scenario for what it looked like it could've been," Coutherut said.
For her quick thinking, Coutherut was named this week's News 3 Everyday Hero. Through our partner Southern Bank, she received a $425 Visa gift card. It's a small reward for someone who didn't hesitate to help in a big way.
When asked how she was able to jump in so quickly, Coutherut shared this advice:
"If something sounds like an accident, there might be one," she said. "A life is a life so maybe jump in and help."
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