Photo provided Memori Dooley Dobbs poses with Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi following a reunion lunch in Fairmont, W.Va., on April 17 nearly 48 years after he helped rescue her from a car crash in Cecil Township when she was a 6-month-old baby.

When Pennsylvania State Police troopers arrived at a horrific crash in which a car catapulted off of an Interstate 79 overpass in Cecil Township on Memorial Day weekend nearly 50 years ago, they thought no one could have survived.

The car had plunged 53 feet onto the old Montour Railroad tracks below the interstate near what is now the Southpointe interchange, killing three adults who were in the car.

It was hot and dark in the early hours of May 27, 1978, recalled Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi, who was then a 27-year-old trooper dispatched to the crash scene.

“It was just surreal,” Maggi said. “All of a sudden, we heard this baby cry. We look around and someone says, ‘There’s a baby in there!’ Some folks held the car up and we reached in and pulled the child out.”

Neither Maggi nor anyone else at the scene knew the 6-month-old girl’s name or where she was from as he pulled the child from the wreckage. Both her parents, 22-year-old Frederick Mark D. Dooley and 19-year-old Karen Hines Dooley, and her paternal grandmother, Juanita Ruth Dooley, 51, died at the scene. The family was likely on a road trip to attend a wedding in Cleveland, and the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel, Maggi recalled.

Maggi helped to escort the baby as she was taken by ambulance to Canonsburg Hospital with relatively minor injuries that included a dislocated hip and some lacerations.

“She’s 6 months old. Who is next of kin? I was her only connection at that point. But we didn’t even know her name,” Maggi said.

Family members were eventually located and one of the girl’s aunts traveled to Washington County to identify the bodies and take custody of the child. By then, Maggi only knew the girl’s name was “Memorie,” which is how he spelled it in his police report.

“The family took over from there,” Maggi said.

For the next half-century, Maggi wondered whatever happened to that little girl he helped to rescue from that horrific crash.

“When I drive by (the crash site), I always think of it,” Maggi said.

That curiosity led Maggi to perform Google searches using the names he remembered that were associated with the crash. Over the past year, the 75-year-old county commissioner has written columns and blog posts about some of the high-profile cases he investigated during his time as a state police trooper – he retired from the job in 1997 – so the mystery of the little girl and her story piqued his interest.

Through those web searches last October, he found an obituary for the girl’s aunt, prompting him to reach out to the family living in West Virginia. Another aunt responded to his messages, although she expressed some skepticism about who was inquiring.

“She didn’t know who I was and I didn’t know who she was,” Maggi recalled. “She wanted to make sure I was who I said I was.”

After eventually earning the family’s trust, Maggi learned that the little girl was raised by her aunts, and she was now a 48-year-old married mother of two living in Fairmont, W.Va. And he finally found out her full name: Memori Dooley Dobbs.

“In one of the darkest moments of my life. This person cared, and not only cared but acted on my behalf,” Dobbs said in a phone interview last month.

She and Maggi began talking about the incident and what he remembered of what happened. Then Maggi learned about Dobbs and her upbringing, along with how she turned out as an adult, marrying her husband, Deon Dobbs, and the couple having two children, Zyon and Zycheus, who are now adults. Dobbs is currently the director of Student Success & Completion at Pierpont Community & Technical College in Fairmont.

All of which was overwhelming to Maggi, who still remembers that accident 48 years later.

“I think I’m a pretty tough guy with what I’ve been through with different aspects of my life,” said Maggi, who served in the Marine Corps and spent time as the county sheriff. “But I got a lump in my throat and emotional. And I told her, ‘I always wondered what happened to you.'”

The two eventually discussed meeting each other for a long-awaited reunion. Maggi and his wife, Mary Jeanne, traveled to Fairmont on April 17 to meet Dobbs and her immediate family members, along with several others. Dobbs had “always heard about the police officer who saved me,” but to meet him and speak with him was a memory she’ll never forget.

“It meant a sense of connection and closure and gratitude. I know this sounds cliched, but words can’t explain what he did for my family and me. It turned a tragic chapter into (an example of) passion, courage and humanity, which he showed through his actions,” Dobbs said.

The hug between them when they finally connected last month was half-a-century in the making.

“It was emotional,” Maggi said. “That was 48 years ago and another part of my life and another part of her life. Just to see what that 6-month-old child blossomed into. She has a family.”

The feeling was mutual for Dobbs.

“Seeing the person who actually stepped in during such a devastating moment – one that I can’t remember – made it feel real,” Dobbs said. “This not only created a memory rooted in loss, but it gave me connections and also gratitude to him.”

The two-hour lunch was so inspiring and emotional, Maggi and Dobbs are already discussing a second reunion so he can meet more of her family members. Maggi said he is amazed to see how Dobbs has grown with a family of her own, and thinks her parents and grandmother would be proud of what she has accomplished in life.

“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that. It was a different feeling. It was rewarding,” Maggi said. “It was a good news story that came out of a bad news story.”

For Dobbs, she thinks Maggi’s humanity following the crash and the urge to meet decades later can be a message for others by acknowledging both the pain from loss along with the good that came out of his actions 48 years ago today.

“Out of everything, there is something to be learned. People who see this, I want it to be a reminder that they know the power an individual – a person – has to make a difference,” Dobbs said. “I hope it inspires others to help like Mr. Maggi did. To help when someone needs it, because it can change a life or lives.”