Marine Double Amputee Afghanistan Veteran Saves Baby After Car Crash

Marine who lost legs in Afghanistan explosion saves baby from Queens car crash
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
BY LEONARD GREENE
Updated: Friday, October 16, 2015

Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Just ask Matias Ferreira, who, despite already losing both legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, risked his health and safety Wednesday to save a baby from a smoking car in Queens.

Ferreira, who is getting married Friday, could have easily ignored the crash and gone home to Wantagh, L.I., to his bride-to-be and packed for their Aruba honeymoon.

But duty — and a frantic mother trapped in the driver’s seat — called.

“My baby! My baby!,” the desperate driver cried after her car plowed into a median pole on Cross Bay Blvd. in Howard Beach.

Ferreira, 26, thought of his own 11-month-old daughter. He jumped out of the pickup truck he was driving and sprinted on his prosthetic legs into action with his brother and future father-in-law in tow.

“With the Marines, you are taught to be prepared and act,” said Ferreira, who was leaving his wedding rehearsal at St. Mary Gate of Heaven Parish, when he heard the crash behind him.

Ferreira lost both legs from the knees down and broke his pelvis after stepping on a improvised explosive device while fighting the Taliban during a tour of duty in Afghanistan in January 2011.
read more here