"You literally saved me": Woman dragged in carjacking finds hope in friendship with rescuer
ZIMMERMAN, Minn. -- A Minnesota woman reunited with the good Samaritan who helped her on the side of the highway after she'd been beaten, carjacked and dragged. Both women say they now grapple with anxiety from the traumatic experience.
For 30 seconds, the near-strangers connected by fate simply held each other. And they shared their memories of the other.
"I just saw you running towards me and just holding me and telling me, 'It's OK, I'm here now,'" Billi Jo Kruse said.
Kruse met Kristi Bridgeman last month after a terrifying, violent ordeal that began with a highway collision.
"All of a sudden, I felt this bang and my back window shattered," Kruse said.
Shaken, on the side of Highway 169 near Elk River, Kruse called 911. Because of the cold, she invited the man who hit her to sit in her car.
"Bottom line, I should never have let him in my vehicle," she said.
She says he told her not to call the police because he couldn't get another DWI, and "that she needed to get out of the car or he would have to shoot her," according to the criminal complaint.
"He was hitting me in the face, in the head, in the ear," Kruse said. "I told him, 'I have kids, please don't do this.'"
Kruse says he pushed her partway out of the car and drove off, dragging her with it. Then she was alone, screaming for help. Bridgeman heard her while driving by.
"I just saw you there, saw you needed help," Bridgeman said.
Leaving the car he was driving at the scene with a loaded gun inside, police arrested Edward Lafore Jr. last week. He's charged with five felonies, including aggravated robbery and assault.
"He terrifies me, but I feel better," Kruse said.
Bridgeman has helped her feel better, too, knowing someone was there in the darkness to help.
"You literally saved me, and I am very grateful," Kruse said.
Kruse will be out of work another four weeks as she recovers from a concussion and her other injuries. The family has started a GoFundme to help cover costs.
