Jim Harbaugh, assistant aid victims of serious crash

University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh stopped and assisted two drivers in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tuesday, following a serious crash on Interstate 94.

Harbaugh was heading to the airport with Michigan football operations director Jim Minick, his boyhood friend in Ann Arbor who recently retired from the military, when they came upon the crash about 2:45 p.m.

U-M associate athletic director Dave Ablauf confirmed the details to the Free Press, saying they “got the people out of the car, did a little medical treatment, and gave them a coat.”

Ablauf said they were on the scene a half-hour and stayed after the police and emergency personnel arrived.

Harbaugh continued to the airport and was unaware of the attention on the assistance, Ablauf said, and was unavailable for comment.

“He would do it any time for anyone,” Ablauf said. “He thinks he’s doing what anyone else would do.”

Joyce Williams, Public Affairs Manager for the Huron Valley Ambulance Service, confirmed Harbaugh was at the scene of the accident.

She said the crash happened after the car that had been going westbound on the freeway ended up going over the median and onto the eastbound side, crashing into another vehicle.

Williams said two people were transported to a hospital in unstable condition. Ann Arbor firefighters also removed a dog from one of the cars and took it to an animal emergency clinic in the area.

Michigan started spring practice last week, but the football team is off this week, because U-M is on spring break. Classes resume Monday, football practice Tuesday.

Since arriving in Ann Arbor on Dec. 29, Harbaugh has generated far more attention for his personality than his football results.

From the moment he started his Twitter feed, he began treating it like a road map to his non-football life, following the Pope, dropping subliminal tweets when he visited recruits — he wasn’t allowed to name them under NCAA rules — and even tweeted at fellow Michigan alum Madonna this week after she fell in a recent show.

Even Tuesday, after helping the motorist, he was tweeting his congratulations to Judge Judy for her new contract as if nothing else significant was occurring in his life.

He has nearly 200,000 Twitter followers. The only college football coach with more followers is Ohio State’s Urban Meyer, who’s closing in on 250,000.