Dover Twp. neighbors rushed to help teen hit by car

Tia Gilbert placed a magenta stuffed elephant at a small memorial along South Salem Church Road in Dover Township near where 13-year-old Matthew Gowen died Thursday night.

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Gilbert was in her home, on the phone with her father, when she heard the crash. She immediately ran outside. She saw a piece of exercise equipment, an elliptical machine, sitting by the road. Then she saw a boy lying along the road a short distance away.

"Oh my god, this is just a kid," she thought. 

She ran to him. He wasn't conscious.

She checked for a pulse.

She thought she felt a pulse but later considered maybe it was her own pulse she felt. She tried to calm herself down as she stayed with the boy, concentrating on the fact that there are two fire stations nearby and medics would soon be there.

"I tried to check for breathing in his neck and underneath his nose," Gilbert said Saturday morning, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I found out his name, and I just kept talking to him, talking to him and telling him to hang in there, stay with me ..."

Gilbert said it felt like forever, but she knew that only a couple of minutes had passed. She didn't want to do chest compressions for fear she would injure Matthew.

"I mean, I held that boy's hand, and I tried to ...," Gilbert trailed off. "And he just was gone."

Jim Eiler and Andi Long, who live a couple of houses away from Gilbert, said they heard the crash, too.

Long ran outside and called 911 when she realized what had happened.

"We didn't see the actual accident," Eiler said.

"We just heard it," Long said. "Bang."

The woman who was driving the van that hit Matthew was crying, they said. She kept repeating that she didn't see the boy she hit, Long said.

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As the others tended to Matthew and his friends who were with him when the crash happened but who were physically unharmed, Eiler went to the driver of the van.

"I just comforted her and held her and let her talk," Eiler said. 

Northern York County Regional Police said Matthew and three other juveniles were "standing/walking on the shoulder of the road with an elliptical machine," when the crash happened just before 7:30 p.m. Thursday. A Kia minivan was traveling north on South Salem Church Road when it collided with the elliptical machine and one of the juveniles. 

The 35-year-old driver of the minivan, who has not been identified, was not injured, police said.

Police continue to investigate the crash. They had the road closed in the area from about 7 to 9 a.m. Saturday to take photographs of the scene.

Eiler, Long, Gilbert and several other neighbors who live near the 4800 block of South Salem Church Road said drivers on that stretch of road are often careless and they speed. Saturday morning, as they stood near where Matthew died, they watched as many passing cars crossed the white line onto the shoulder.

Maybe Matthew's death will wake people up, make drivers everywhere slow down and be more careful, the three agreed.

Gilbert said she works in construction and sees people driving carelessly all the time. She wants people to think about this tragedy, to think about Matthew, and to slow down.

She looked over to the magenta stuffed elephant that she left at Matthew's memorial.

"I figured elephants never forget and neither will I," Gilbert said.

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