‘Stay Behind Me:’ Abducted Teen Jumps Out of Car to Escape Kidnapper—Then Construction Worker Protects Her, Calls 911

Illustration - Shutterstock

As a construction worker for the Virginia Department of Transportation, Kevin Huntington is no stranger to the dangers of Interstate highways, and he knows to always keep his eyes open. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time to save a life when a teen girl jumped out of a moving car and asked him for help.

While Huntington didn’t know the backstory of the 18-year-old’s abduction, he stepped up to protect the terrified teenager from her abuser. “I immediately called [911] and then told her to stay behind me, that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her,” the construction worker told Dateline NBC.

When Huntington set out to work that eventful day, he had no idea he would find himself in the middle of a serious abduction case. “It’s nothing you’ll ever think that you’d be part of,” he explained to NBC, as he and a fellow construction worker did their job by the side of the Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia.

All of a sudden, a car came flying through the speed zone, clearly above the limit. Huntington explained to WTVR, “I notice a female jump out of the car, she came running up to us and and you could tell she was pretty distraught and terrified.” Despite her panic at just having escaped, the girl got the message across to Huntington: “Call 911.”

When Huntington asked what was going on, she breathlessly told him that a man was trying to kill her. While the construction worker struggled to process this extraordinary situation, he knew exactly what to do. He immediately told the teen to get behind him and stay there. “No matter what, I was going to do whatever I had to in order to keep her safe,” he told NBC.

Then her abuser, Aaron Berg, pulled over and got out of the car. “He came up the shoulder and got out of the car and [I] noticed he was on the phone,” Huntington told WTVR. Seeing the girl sheltered by the brawny construction worker, Berg ended up leaving the scene in haste. Police arrived shortly after and took the girl for medical treatment.

It turns out that, unbeknownst to her parents, she had met Berg on an online dating site. When she went to his house, though, he refused to allow her to leave. At Berg’s court date, Assistant District Attorney Sarah Ulmer said, “The last time she attempted to leave, he pushed her against the wall and strangled her manually and with a towel,” according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Terrified of what might happen next, the teen convinced Berg to go on a trip to Baltimore with her. “She wanted to get somewhere public,” Assistant DA Ulmer said, so she could find an opportunity to escape her captor. On the road, she managed to contact her father and let him know her location. While he suggested taking the wheel and crashing the car to escape, the young woman instead managed to jump out in the construction zone.

When police arrived, they thanked Huntington for his help in the case. “We were just at the right place at the right time,” Huntington said. Beyond the threatened teen’s rescue from her ordeal, Huntington felt he learned the importance of saying something when you see something.

“So many people nowadays are so focused on going from point A to point B,” he told NBC. “You never know whose life you may save.”

Huntington never set out to be a hero but “just did the right thing,” as he explained, adding, “If someone needs your help, pick up the phone and do what you can.”