Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes have spoken about how they were sitting "inches" from a car accident while lunching in New York City.
The former ABC co-hosts turned lovers, spoke about their scary experience on Monday's episode of their podcast, Amy & T.J.
They shared how they were eating with Holmes' daughter, Sabine, in the Tribeca area of Manhattan at a bistro called Edward's on an unspecified Sunday. The group sat in a corner of the restaurant's extended outdoor area, close to traffic on West Broadway.
Robach said of the structures where they were sitting that they "are out in the road where people would park, people would be driving, but you're actually taking up a lane... this is one of the ones that is left over from the pandemic."
The structures are part of New York City's "Dining Out NYC" outdoor dining program that allow some service establishments to extend their seating "in the roadway, sidewalk, or both."
Holmes said that where they were sitting was right by the road near traffic and that Robach and he had their backs to the passing cars.
"Let's say if a car was going to hit that structure, we would be hit," Holmes said. "So we were right there in the line of danger, we didn't realize, we didn't think about that. You don't, you just sit outside and eat."
As they were eating, they heard tires screeching and the impact of one "vehicle crash into another."
Holmes then saw a white minivan hurtling toward where they were seated and leaped into action, including throwing Robach to safety.
"Imagine that folks, you are sitting with a piece of plywood as the only thing between you and a vehicle coming at speed, that had just crashed into another parked car, coming at you," he said.
Robach added: "You threw me as far away from where the car would have been coming. And I landed on top of this older gentleman, who then landed on the floor as well."
"Everyone else in the restaurant[...]started jumping [and] plates were flying, everybody was running."
The aftermath of the accident was "an insane scene," according to Holmes and they both praised Sabine, who is his daughter from his first marriage, for her "quick reflexes" which Robach said "she obviously inherited from" her father.
"Is it flight or fight? I think I froze in that second," she said, as Holmes added, "I ended up flying, me and my Black child, we know how to fight."
The fight or flight reflex" refers to a combination of reactions or responses to stress which "evolved as a survival mechanism, enabling people and other mammals to react quickly to life-threatening situations," according to Harvard Health.
Newsweek contacted the New York Police Department by email on Tuesday morning for comment.
Eventually, when everything had calmed down, they surveyed the scene and saw tables and chairs turned over, but it did not appear that anyone had been injured.
"It was scary, we were shaking, it was scary," Robach admitted.
"You know, you live in New York long enough and I've never had anything like that happen, where I was inches away from a very serious, and potentially deadly situation."
They finished speaking about the accident by reflecting on what they had learned from it.
"These are all those little moments, that we're all on borrowed time, no one knows what tomorrow brings, and it's just another reminder for us to appreciate what you have. Appreciate who you're with. Tell the people you love that you love them," Robach said. "It can take one second and everything changes."
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