SWFL man thankful good Samaritan stopped to help fiance, child in crash

A Lehigh Acres man says his fiancé and baby would not have survived a crash had a good Samaritan not stepped in to rescue them.

Thursday morning, Dianelis Monzon was driving with her 1-year-old daughter, Emma, along I-75 in Charlotte County when the car flipped into a water-filled ditch off Tuckers Grade — the roof of the car crushed and windows shattered.

“She went into the median, and then she hit the median and rolled onto the opposite side of the guardrail,” said Anthony Fowler, father of Emma and fiancé to Monzon.

Fowler says another driver in a car cut off Monzon while she was driving and that caused the eventual crash. Monzon was on the phone with a friend, and the friend was left with the sound of screaming before the call went dead.

“She told me that, ‘I think something bad happened to Dianelis,’” Fowler said.

At the time, Fowler was working on the east coast.

“I actually turned on WINK on my phone and then I saw the live streaming,” Fowler said.

That’s when he saw our broadcast and WINK News Reporter Sabrina Katz describing the crash.

Fowler’s instincts kicked in, and he started heading back home.

After the car flipped over into a ditch, a nearby good Samaritan rushed to help, sloshing through ankle-deep water to get to the car.

“I would say thank you for stopping. Thank you for saving my girl’s life, both of them,” Fowler said. “And, if there’s any way I can … you know, contact him, Dianelis would like to talk to him.”

Emma escaped the crash uninjured. Firefighters say the car seat saved her. Monzon was injured during the crash and required surgery to treat them, and she is now recovering. Fowler says he will continue to search for the driver who swerved into his fiancé’s lane.

Still able to hold his little girl, Fowler knows the bystander wasn’t the only one looking out for his family.

“Yeah, definitely, there’s an angel on their shoulders, yep,” Fowler said.