Matt Hamill saves a child following car chase down the highway
Former Ultimate Fighter season 3 competitor Matt Hamill was a hero this past week, helping to save a child when his mother was driving the wrong way down a highway in upstate New York.
According to a report from MMAFighting.com, Hamill was driving from his home in the Empire State to his native Ohio when he noticed a car driving sporadically down I-90, southeast of Rochester.
At first Hamill just noticed everybody avoiding this random car going the wrong way, but when he passed by the former UFC light heavyweight knew something was seriously wrong.
"Everyone was going like 70 miles per hour. She was driving the wrong way, just kind of swerving around. She was going slower but she was going on the wrong side of the street, and you could see her face, she was kind of drooling. There was obviously something going on with her that just wasn't right," Hamill said.
Hamill quickly whipped his truck around on the highway and gave chase to the car before Nicole Lamendola, 27, drove her car off the road into a grassy area. Hamill pulled his truck in behind her to ensure she wouldn't be able to get out again and finally ran out as the car continued to slowly idle forward with the woman unresponsive in the front seat.
Hamill says he punched out the window and manually stopped the car when he discovered a 6-year old child in the backseat bawling and clearly frightened from the entire incident.
According to police reports via WROC-TV, Lamendola was spotted driving east on the westbound side of I-90 and when authorities arrived she was given and failed a field sobriety test.
Lamendola was later charged with felony DWI and reckless endangerment before being jailed on $12,000 bond and her child was given over to a family member.
Police thanked Hamill for his quick reaction to help subdue the situation before things got much worse.
"(The little boy) was fine and everything, just a little bit upset," Hamill said. "But if she hadn't been stopped I definitely feel like someone would've ran into something."
