SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A recent fatal shooting outside a Sacramento bar left one woman traumatized after driving the victim to the hospital in what she called a necessary act. She was recently recognized for it by a nearby business owner.
Erica Spence has lived in the Greenhaven neighborhood near the scene of the Dec. 7 shooting for the last few years.
"I was on my way home from orientation at the airport and I drove past the bar where the shooting happened. I drive past there every day home from work," Spence told ABC10.
She says she was driving home but noticed masked men running from the scene of the shooting and initially thought a business was being robbed.
Once the masked men got into their cars and drove off, Spence followed them to get their license plate numbers but they got away.
"That's when I drove back and saw a guy bleeding bad. I told the gentlemen around to put him in my car and they said 'Are you sure?' I said, 'yes,' and I couldn't just let him pass," she said.
Although Spence was able to achieve her goal of getting the man to the hospital, the 21-year-old died from his injuries.
"I've thought about this so much. I couldn't sleep at first and went back to the scene just to think about how things could have gone differently," she said. "Could I have gone to a different hospital? Could I have drove there faster? The detectives did tell me I got there faster than any ambulance."
The one thing Spence says she never thought about was how the blood would stain backseat of her truck.
"I have two kids but when I drive them in the truck now we have to go one at a time since I don't want them to sit in the backseat until it's clean," she said.
She says a professional deep cleaning is needed to get her truck back into shape, and that's when the owner of the nearby Trap Bar came to help.
She says Trap Bar owner Mariah Lukenbill donated $200 toward her cleaning costs, plus she got another $160 from a community activist who gathered donations on her behalf.
"That was a really brave thing she did. She was really sweet and nice but a bit shaken up by the whole thing," Lukenbill said. "We're glad to help."
