Teens save one-year-old from car wreck which claimed mum's life

A one-year-old girl is lucky to still be alive thanks to two quick-thinking US teens who saved her from a car wreck which claimed her mother's life.

The deadly car crash happened in Minooka in Illinois just after midnight on June 30 local time.

Hunter Hasenjaeger, 16, and Collin Barry, 17, had not long left a friend's house in Hunter's Chevy Cruze when they saw smoke billowing from a dark road and two people standing there.

The devastating three-car accident left 27-year-old Alexis Danley, who was six-months pregnant was seriously injured in the front seat of her Chrysler 300.

“There’s a baby in the car!” the couple on the road told the boys.

The teens heard the cries of the baby in the backseat.

Hunter said he pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight and rushed to the car.

He told American TV station WGN that Danley had been sitting in the driver's seat and had one arm dangling out of the car.

While Hunter held the light, Collin unstrapped the one-year-old from the backseat and pulled her from the wreckage.

"My heart was just racing, it was just crazy,” Hunter said.

“I just kept telling the mum that help was on the way and that her baby is okay.”

“I never expected in my life that I would walk up and see her how she was."

Danley was transported from the scene by an ambulance but eventually died from her injuries.

The unborn baby also died.

Hunter said that after he and Collin left the scene, he went home and that's when the emotion of the event hit him.

“I took Collin home,” Hunter said.

"Then I went home and just cried to my mum. I have never seen anything like that in my life.

“It’s just depressing and sad.

“I brought [Danley’s] family over food and brought the baby a little teddy bear. That helped me cope with it.”

He said Danley's family called him a hero.

“Her mum is really upset. They just thanked me from the bottom of their heart and said that I’m a hero. But I just don’t think that I’m a hero—I just did what anyone should have done.”

Newsbreak - July 9