S.C. family attends funeral of rescuer

‘I had an angel’: Good Samaritan helped after I-95 crash

Rodrine Buffaloe opened the sunroof of the SUV and Efrain Merced peered inside.

Buffaloe and her family had just been hit by a passing car on Interstate 95 early Tuesday, and their SUV flipped onto its side in the median.

Merced saw the accident from his semi-truck, where he was a passenger and he got out to see what he could do.

Merced’s driver was trying to slow down traffic while Merced was trying to get the Buffaloes out of the SUV.

“He just knelt down and said ‘I’m here to help you,’ ” said Dr. Leon Buffaloe, who was in the passenger seat. Then there was a crash. Another car hit the Buffaloes’ SUV and Merced. The front portion of the SUV was crushed.

Merced, 59, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Leon, 46, and Rodrine Buffaloe, 40, along with their son Leon, 6, and daughter Naomi, 5, suffered minor injuries. The other driver, 24-year-old Christopher Dobbs of New Jersey, said he did not see them until it was too late. He suffered minor injuries.

Leon Buffaloe believes Merced saved his family’s life. He thinks the driver of the other car saw Merced and swerved, avoiding hitting the SUV headon.

“I feel like I had an angel,” Buffaloe said.

The Buffaloes, who are from Simpsonville, S.C., were on their way to a conference in Palm Coast around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday near Ormond Beach when a small red passenger vehicle changing lanes hit them, then took off.

The red car never stopped. Troopers have not found the driver.

Seeing Merced was comforting, even if it was only for a few seconds, Buffaloe said.

“To see a friendly face — it was everything,” he said.

Merced’s daughter is not surprised her father jumped out to lend a hand. She called him a hero.

“It’s just the heart he has,” said Josselyn Merced, 21. “The first instinct he has is to help.”

Efrain Merced was a longtime truck driver and father to four children. He enjoyed cooking and being with family, she said.

His daughter said he had just bought a house in Haines City.

“He put a lot of work into the house,” she said. “There were a lot of plans that were supposed to be done. He was