An Oregon teen saw 3 people die after they slid on ice into a power line. Then she went to help

PORTLAND, Ore. — Majiah Washington noticed a flash outside her home in Portland this week, where a dangerous storm had blanketed the city in ice. She opened her blinds and saw a red SUV with a broken power line on it and a couple who had put their baby in the car.

The woman screamed for her boyfriend to get the baby to safety, and he grabbed the child and began clambering up the driveway on concrete that was so slippery that walking was nearly impossible. But before he got halfway, he slid backward and his foot hit the live wire — “a little fire and then smoke,” Washington said.

The mother, six months pregnant, tried to reach the baby, but she too slipped and was electrocuted. That also applied to her 15-year-old brother, when he came to help.

Washington, 18, was on the phone with a dispatcher when she noticed the baby lying on top of his father and moving his head – the 9-month-old baby was still alive. After just seeing three people terrified, she decided to try to save the boy.

She kept a low crouch to avoid sliding into the barbed wire as she approached, she said at a news conference Thursday, a day after the deaths. As she held the baby, she touched the father’s body but was not shocked, she said.

“I was worried about the baby,” said Washington, who recognized the woman as her neighbor’s daughter. “There was no one with the baby.”

Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman Rick Graves praised Washington for her heroism, but admitted he didn’t understand how she and the baby weren’t also electrocuted. The baby was examined at a hospital and is doing well, authorities said.

“Luckily we have a toddler with us who will be able to thrive and do what they can as they move forward,” Graves said. “And they are here in part because of the heroic actions of a member of our community.”

The snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures that lashed the Pacific Northwest over the past week are now responsible for at least 10 deaths in Oregon, due to hypothermia and falling trees or power poles, along with five due to hypothermia in the area Seattle.

Oregon’s governor declared a statewide state of emergency Thursday evening after requests for assistance from several counties “as they enter their sixth day of severe weather impacts.”

The ice weighs down trees and power lines, causing them to break, especially in high winds. That appears to be the cause of the electrocution deaths: a large branch broke from a tree, landed on electrical wires and pushed one onto the vehicle.

Washington’s neighbor, Ronald Briggs, declined to speak to The Associated Press other than to confirm that his 21-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son had been killed.

But he told Portland television station KGW that his daughter had come to use the Internet after hers went down. He and his wife had just gotten into their own car to run an errand when they heard the bang and saw that the SUV was apparently on fire.

He watched as the couple slid to their deaths — and then told his 15-year-old son, Ta’Ron Briggs, a high school sophomore, to keep his distance, but to no avail.

“I told him, ‘Don’t go there, try to get away from them.’ And he slipped, and he touched the water, and he, and he died too,” Briggs said. “I have six children. I lost two in one day.”

“It just hurt,” he said. “Being a good father can’t fix this right now.”

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Johnson reported from Seattle.