An Oregon teenager on Thursday detailed how she “did what any sane person would do” when she rushed to save a 9-month-old baby after seeing three people be electrocuted by a downed power line.
Majiah Washington, 18, said the infant was lying in her dead father’s arms next to a live wire after the fatal incident Wednesday. The teen put her own life at risk to save the baby, Portland authorities said, given the icy road conditions and her proximity to the power line.
Washington recounted her experience in a news conference, recalling how she saw a flash outside her Portland home after a red SUV became entangled in a power line that was taken down by a fallen tree branch—the result of a nasty winter storm that has left more than a dozen people dead in Oregon this week.
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The teen said she watched from her window as a man holding a swaddled baby slipped and fell while trying to get away from a fire that had broken out under the SUV. Washington said the man’s foot just barely touched the downed power line, and he died instantly. She dialed 911 as she rushed outside.
Shortly after, the baby’s mother, who was six months pregnant, and her brother, a 15-year-old high school student, were also killed by slipping and touching the wire, Washington said.
Despite witnessing the downed line claim the lives of three people, Washington said she didn’t hesitate to rush and save the baby once she realized the child was still alive.
“The baby moved his head and that’s how I knew he was still here,” she said. “The only thing I could think about was he was still here. I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, I can be electrocuted.’ I was thinking, ‘I need to grab this baby.’”
Washington said she maneuvered down the icy asphalt using her hands to prevent herself from slipping. Once she got to the child, she carefully scooped the baby up and walked slowly back to safety, where authorities said the infant’s grandparents had watched the tragic scene unfold in horror.
“I can’t believe it happened,” Washington said. “It’s hard to grasp.”
The child, who was not named, was taken to a hospital and was determined to be healthy. The teenage victim was identified as Ta’Ron Briggs and his sister as Taj Briggs, 21. The father of the baby was identified only as “Nash.”
Their deaths are just three among a dozen connected to a nasty winter storm that has crippled the Portland metro area this week. The Oregonian reported that two people were killed in Portland by falling trees, two others were killed in a church fire, and four people have been confirmed as killed by hypothermia. A fifth death is being probed as likely related to hypothermia, the paper reported. Elsewhere in the country, 14 people were killed by a winter storm in Tennessee and three people died in western New York.
Washington’s neighbor, Ronald Briggs, told KGW that he was Taj and Ta’Ron Brigg’s father. He said his daughter had come to his house to use the internet after hers went out, and that he witnessed her be electrocuted in an instant.
The grieving father said he screamed at his son, Ta-Ron, and told him to stay away from the downed line, but he too slid and was fatally shocked.
“I have six kids,” Ronald Briggs said. “I lost two of them in one day.”
Washington, a day care worker, said she thought about her own loved ones when she pulled off the daring rescue.
“I just thought I have a nephew myself, I have little brothers,” she said. “I would want somebody to do the same thing.”
