Lake Placid native and U.S. Army veteran Trevor Hough speaks at Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina in 2019. (Photo provided)

Lake Placid native and U.S. Army veteran Trevor Hough was sitting in standstill traffic on a highway in North Carolina earlier this month when he saw a man run toward a woman’s car, dive headlong into her passenger window and attempt to steal her car. When the woman screamed for help, Hough leaped into action — he didn’t know that the man he was about to confront was Kelvin Wayne Simmons, a wanted bank robber who’d just led local police on a high-speed chase.

In the end, Hough and two other U.S. military veterans saved the woman from being carjacked and detained Simmons, who was wanted by U.S. Marshals, until local police arrived.

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The incident

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Hough was driving back to his home in Greeneville, South Carolina from Lake Placid on Thursday, June 1 with his wife, two children and dog in tow. They were about an hour from home, exhausted from the long journey. In Lake Placid, Hough and his brother, Ernest, had attended a Memorial Day ceremony at the Lake Placid American Legion Post 326 that honored their father, Marine veteran Ernest Hough III, who died in May 2022.

Driving along I-240 in Asheville, North Carolina, Trevor Hough remembers thinking, “Man, this has been a long week.”

“Then, BAM,” Hough told the Enterprise on Sunday. “Life changes in a minute.”

Traffic came to a standstill. Hough got in the right lane of the multi-lane highway, trying to creep ahead of whatever was stopping traffic. That’s when he saw around six cars “smashed to hell” in the middle of the highway. Soon after, he spotted Simmons running toward the stopped cars.

At first, Hough thought Simmons was hurt in the collision and needed a doctor. There were no police or ambulance on the scene yet.

Simmons was running past a car in the far left lane when the 72-year-old driver inside rolled her passenger window down. She thought Simmons needed help, too. Instead, Simmons dove headfirst into her open window and started landing punches on her. He didn’t need medical attention — he was trying to steal her car and flee the scene, according to Hough.

That’s when Hough heard the driver unleash a “guttural, primal” scream.

“My god, somebody help me! He’s trying to kill me!” she yelled.

Without kissing his wife or saying goodbye to his kids, Hough threw his car into park and ran to the woman’s driver’s side. When he opened her door, he saw Simmons punching and elbowing the woman, trying to edge her out of the car. Her seatbelt was unlatched but she was tangled in it, and she ended up hanging upside-down out of the driver’s side in the scuffle.

Hough was grabbing at Simmons, trying to get him under control, but the wanted felon was “sweaty, slimy and nasty,” Hough said — Hough couldn’t get a grip on him. Simmons put the woman’s car in drive with his foot on the gas, but the cars in front were stopped. He couldn’t drive very far. Still, the entangled, upside-down driver was being dragged the short distance, the skin on her arm gone, the raw wound bleeding.

Once the car stopped, Hough ran back up to the driver’s side. That’s when two other men approached to help, and Hough finally got a grip on Simmons. Hough ripped the man out of the car by his head, got him on the ground and detained him with his knees. The other two men helped the woman find a seat near the guardrail where she rested, dazed.

As Hough worked to keep Simmons under control, Simmons started to reach behind his back as if he was retrieving a weapon. Though Hough ultimately believes Simmons had lost the weapon in the chase, at the time, Hough remembers thinking, “One of us is going to die, and it’s not going to be me.” After voicing this to Simmons, the felon said, “I don’t want to die.”

“I said, ‘Good, then don’t move,'” Hough recalls telling Simmons.

That’s when the local Black Mountain Police Department cruisers showed up. Police asked Hough, “Do you know this man?”

Hough had no idea who Simmons was at the time.

“All I was trying to do was prevent a 72-year-old woman from getting killed,” Hough said.

Police revealed that Simmons was wanted by the U.S. Marshals for five bank robberies, according to Hough, and that the man had just led police on a 115 mph chase, driving down the I-240 on-ramp in the opposite direction of traffic to flee law enforcement. No one was killed in the multiple-car collision.

Back in his car, Hough said his kids were occupied by iPads and largely unaware of the events that had just unfolded. He turned to his young son and said, “Buddy, remember what you saw — you have to help people.” His son replied, “Yes, Daddy,” not yet processing what had happened.

The day has been tough for Hough to process, too. He’s had some sleepless nights, wondering if he should have done things differently. He remembers June 1 as a surreal, life-changing day filled with adrenaline. His fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, he said, and he chose to fight with all the strength his three-decade military career had provided him.

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Lend a hand

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It wasn’t until after the incident unfolded that Hough realized the other two men who came to the driver’s rescue were also U.S. military veterans.

“We watched you go into action and knew we had to help,” Hough remembers the vets saying.

Vets are often painted in a negative light, Hough said — suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, higher-than-average suicide rates and homelessness — but when push came to shove, he said, it was three vets who saved the day on June 1. It makes him feel good that “these guys are still here.”

Hough is Catholic, and he said the experience reminded him that “God is love,” and love sometimes means sacrificing your own well-being for someone else’s. That’s what law enforcement do when they sign up for their jobs, he said — they’re essentially writing a check and saying, “I’m trading my life for yours.”

Hough said he’s being hailed as a “hero” by the media and people in his life, but he’s uncomfortable with the hero label. He was just helping someone who needed it. But Hough believes he did save a life — and if Simmons drove off, Hough wonders, how many more people might the man have hurt?

Now, Hough said he can’t encourage people enough to lend a hand. It doesn’t have to be a “heroic” act, he said — it could be holding a door open for someone or helping an older person cross the street. The incident reminded Hough that life is precious and fragile and can be gone in the blink of an eye.

“Every day is a gift,” he said.

Hough gave the commencement speech at the 2016 Lake Placid Middle-High School graduation, where he encouraged graduating seniors to accomplish four things in life: Serve, love, learn and explore. Hough said that the events on June 1 gave him a chance to do two of those — to love and serve.

As of press time Monday, Simmons was being held in Buncombe County prison on an $875,000 bond for first-degree kidnapping, common-law robbery, assault on a female, felony possession of cocaine, and fleeing/eluding arrest with a motor vehicle, according to the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office. Hough said he’d like to see Simmons’ bond removed for the safety of his family.

Simmons is classified as a “habitual felon” in North Carolina, according to the state’s Department of Adult Correction records. He’s served more than 23 years in prison on multiple robbery, breaking and entering, larceny, assault and kidnapping charges, among others.