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'It was just inches': Good Samaritan says little girl barely made it out of deadly crash in Tomball

“I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I could smell smoke, and I saw a baby in the backseat, about – like a toddler."

TOMBALL, Texas — Lindsay Carlen says she was bringing a friend to an emergency room clinic in Tomball when she heard a devastating and deadly crash late Monday night.

“I heard the sound of the screeching tires, I heard this car just spin out of control and crash into this pole, and I just immediately jumped out of my car, called 911,” said Carlen. “I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I could smell smoke, and I saw a baby in the backseat, about – like a toddler. And I tried to break the back window. I couldn’t break the window on my own.”

Carlen feared leaving the child, age 6, in the wreckage, so she managed to unlock the child’s door by reaching through another broken window.

RELATED: Driver facing felony murder charge for crash that killed passenger, injured little girl in Tomball

“I spoke with the little girl. I told her my name, and I told her that I was gonna help her, that it might hurt a little bit, but I was gonna get her out of the car. She told me her name, she told me how old she was. She trusted me, so I had to work her out of her car seat because it was jammed. And I didn’t want to hurt her legs more than they already were.”

Carlen said when she got her out, she finished the phone call with 911, and paramedics arrived shortly after.

“I just held on to little baby Avery until they took her away.”

The good Samaritan described it as a miracle that the little girl escaped without more serious injuries or even death because of the way the car spun around and hit the poll from the vehicle’s rear, not far from where baby Ava Bahr, or “Avery,” was strapped in.

“It was inches, just inches. If it had been slightly to the left, that little girl would have been gone. She would not have survived, for sure.”

Unfortunately, the crash claimed the life an adult woman, who was also a passenger in the vehicle. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office later identified her as Melissa Wendt. The male driver, Eric Bahr, Wendt's common-law husband, was taken to the hospital with injuries. Avery is their daughter.

Deputies with HCSO said the man showed “signs of impairment” and is facing a felony murder charge.

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