About 15 bystanders worked together Monday morning to free a man pinned by a pickup truck that crashed just off a St. Paul street, police said.

The man, who was eating lunch by an apartment building, was taken to Regions Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

People got out of their vehicles to run over and lift the truck onto its side on Maryland Avenue near Interstate 35E.

“I think it’s amazing that people did the seemingly impossible to help somebody else out,” Linders said. “They saw somebody in need, they jumped up and even though he was pinned underneath an incredibly heavy vehicle, they worked together to overcome those odds and possibly save his life.”

Just after 11:15 a.m., a 68-year-old pickup truck driver was heading west on Maryland Avenue.

“All of a sudden people were slamming on their brakes (as they approached the stop light) and I didn’t slam on mine fast enough,” said the driver, David Vetter Sr. “I knew I was going to hit the car in front of me if I would have kept going.”

Vetter swerved and went over the curb, thinking he would be able to stop his truck quickly, but said he was unable to in the wet grass. The St. Paul man, who said he was a U.S. Marine and a Vietnam War veteran, said he was horrified by what happened.

The truck struck a street light and then slid into a landscaped area where two people were sitting near the apartment building, Linders said. A man was pinned under the vehicle and he may have sustained broken ribs, according to police.

Vetter and the person sitting with the man were not injured.

From her window at the apartment building, Cornerstone Estates, manager Lori Harper said she heard a crash and saw a light pole falling. She went outside, where people were yelling, “There’s somebody under the truck!”

Initially, about three people tried flipping the truck off the man and then others joined in, Harper said.

“To me that was heroic doing that,” Harper said.

Police cited Vetter for failure to drive with due care. He was not suspected of being impaired, Linders said. Officers reconstructed the crash to determine the truck’s speed.

“I really, really wish it hadn’t happened,” Vetter said. “I feel terrible about it.”