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Good Samaritans rescue baby boy pinned under car

Chances are a six-month-old boy who was struck by a car Tuesday won't have any memory of the accident that nearly cost him his young life or the guardian angels who rescued him.

The baby was being pushed in a stroller by his mother as they crossed an intersection in Nanaimo, B.C., on Tuesday when they were struck by a car running a red light, the Nanaimo Daily News reports.

The baby, strapped into a car seat plopped into the stroller, was hurled into the street, ending up under the car.

The mother cried for someone to help her screaming baby. That's when passersby quickly leapt into action.

Around five people grabbed the rear end of the new model Volkswagen Jetta and lifted it off the ground so another could pull the baby from underneath.

[ Related: Officers and bystanders rescue 6-year-old boy pinned under car ]

The child suffered only minor brushes and scraps but was kept in hospital overnight for observation as a precaution, RCMP Const. Gary O'Brien said. Perhaps the car seat did its job, even though the baby wasn't in a car at the time.

The 20-year-old mother, who lives in Port Alberni, B.C., on the west coast of Vancouver Island, escaped with a minor abrasion on her leg.

"They're heroes," O'Brien told the Huffington Post, referring to the impromptu rescue squad.

He told the Daily News the Mounties want to formally recognize their actions.

"It could have been the worsecase scenario," O'Brien said. "It never ceases to amaze me."

We shouldn't be surprised at how ordinary people can do seemingly superhuman things in an emergency. There have been other cases of people lifting vehicles off trapped victims.

In 2012 a 22-year-old Virginia woman even lifted her father's BMW off him by herself when he was pinned while trying to replace a flat tire, ABC News reported.

"I guess the way he was moving the car with his wrench, the jack slipped and it fell on top of him," Lauren Kornacki explained. "He was unconscious and his arm was caught over his chest.

"I just literally lifted up the car. It was like a table with a short leg. It kind of balanced it back out and shifted enough to free my dad."

[ Related: Brothers rescue child trapped in underwater vehicle in B.C. ]

And in Toronto, a group of people teamed up to lift a Lincoln Town Car off a nine-year-old boy in 2012, CBC News reported.

"They put it on neutral, they lifted it up and they pushed it backwards," one youth who witnessed the event told CBC News.

"He [the boy] was bleeding from his back. He was like crumpled up. The condition was really bad."

As for the 21-year-old Jetta driver in Nanaimo, he was issued a $368 ticket for driving without due care and attention. If it hadn't been for the quick thinking of a few people, he could have been facing a lot worse. But the child will live to hear the story.