Bleeding man climbs into woman’s car

A Springfield woman said she escaped serious injury Tuesday morning when a heavily bleeding man jumped into her car on Craigue Hill and demanded to be driven away.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20141015/NEWS02/710159879

Photo by Len Emery Bloodstains mark the inside door of Brenda Neronsky's car after an incident Tueday in which an injured man climbed in and allegedly said he had a gun. Published October 15, 2014 in the Rutland Herald Bleeding man climbs into woman’s car By SUSAN SMALLHEER STAFF Writer SPRINGFIELD — A Springfield woman said she escaped serious injury Tuesday morning when a heavily bleeding man jumped into her car on Craigue Hill and demanded to be driven away. The man, who was identified as Nicholas Lynch of Springfield, was taken to Springfield Hospital. He was being treated for a suspected overdose of an unknown drug, according to Police Chief Douglas Johnston. Johnston said the man told police he had taken bath salts, heroin and cocaine and had smoked some marijuana. The chief said it would probably be 24 hours before police could question him, and he said Lynch was under guard “and physically restrained” at Springfield Hospital. The chief said the man was also a suspect in a burglary Tuesday in the area and may have been injured trying to break in. Brenda Neronsky, the driver of the car, said in an interview she was on her way to a doctor’s appointment in downtown Springfield when the man, who she said was later identified to her by police and neighbors as Lynch, approached her car at the intersection of Massey Road and Craigue Hill. Neronsky, a retired longtime clerk at Windsor County Probate Court in Springfield, said she couldn’t see anyone chasing Lynch. He fell or rolled on the ground, she said. She was afraid of running over him, so she pulled over. She immediately locked her car doors and tried to roll her windows up, but she said she hit the wrong knob and the window went down and Lynch climbed into the car. She described him as having a normal hair cut but with a “grungy, mental patient look.” Neronsky said the man was bleeding heavily from his wrist, and he told her he had been stabbed and that people were chasing him and trying to kill him. “He was bleeding all over, he bled all over my mail, and all over my jacket and he grabbed my arm,” she said. “I kept on thinking, ‘This only happens on TV.’” Neronsky said Lynch told her, “‘Drive fast, b—, I have a gun.’ He said he had a gun and he was going to shoot me if I didn’t cooperate.” She said she didn’t believe he had a gun because he patted his pants pocket as if a was a gun was there and it was flat. “You could tell his pockets were empty,” she said. “It takes a lot to shake me.” By this time, she said, they were heading down the steep portion of Craigue Hill behind a black truck and she said she “laid on my horn and was tooting, hoping someone would stop.” At one point Lynch grabbed the steering wheel, she said, and they went off the road. She said when she got at the foot of Craigue Hill, she turned right onto Union Street and immediately saw a mailman. “I stopped dead in the road and got out and yelled,” she said. By chance, she said, a police cruiser was behind her. Police then called an ambulance and tried to calm him down, she said. People on Union Street also seemed to know Lynch, who was charged in July with heroin trafficking in Springfield. Neronsky said she later went back with a police officer to where Lynch had gotten into her car, and they looked for where he might have broken into a house. They were also looking for Lynch’s missing shoe. Neronsky said she wasn’t able to call for help on a cellphone because Lynch was sitting on her pocketbook. She said she had already had her 2014 Toyota Venza cleaned at a North Springfield car dealership to remove the blood stains after police had documented the damage. Neronsky credited her calmness during the carjacking to her long experience dealing with distraught people in probate court. “I could usually keep people calm,” said Neronsky, a widow of the late Ron Neronsky. “It takes a lot to shake me.”