After crawling from the wreckage of a collision that killed her friend, 16-year-old Jessilyn Eisman demanded the other driver call 911. When the intoxicated man refused, the feisty teenager stole his keys to prevent him from fleeing the scene.
“I wasn’t just going to let someone leave that just killed my friend,” Eisman told KETV in Omaha of Hilberto Velasquez-Ramirez, 31.
Although she suffered minor injuries in the highway crash, Eisman also managed to flag down a passing car near the accident scene in Council Bluffs, Iowa. When police arrived, Velasquez-Ramirez was arrested. He was later charged with suspicion of homicide by vehicle, two counts of serious injury by vehicle, operating while intoxicated and having no driver’s license or proof of insurance.
He remains in Pottawattamie County Jail in Iowa on $65,000 bail.
Velasquez-Ramirez admitted to drinking six beers before the crash, but claimed the teenagers’ car swerved into his lane and the crash was not his fault.
According to Eisman and the two other survivors, Velasquez-Ramirez side-swiped the driver’s side, which caused the car to veer off the road. Immediately after the crash, Eisman, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat, assessed the conditions of her three friends and found 17-year-old Chrisshaun Moten was unresponsive.
“I looked in the back seat and he was just laying there, so I went over to him and tried shaking him and then he just wouldn’t respond to me,” Eisman tearfully recalled to KETV.
Eisman was treated for minor injuries following the collision. The two other victims, 18-year-old Brenden Kniesly and 17-year-old Philip Moffatt were recovering in area hospitals as of last Saturday. For all three, the emotional wounds will take the longest to heal.
“He was really caring and sweet. He always tried making everyone else happy,” Eisman said of Moten. “I’m just gonna miss him a lot.”
