LEWISTON - A teenage girl was pinned beneath a car for approximately 15 minutes Thursday before she was pulled free by police, firefighters and a group of people who rushed to help.

Kasha Dubois, 15, became trapped beneath a Buick at about 3:15 p.m. after she was knocked off her bicycle and then run over at East Avenue and Webster Street, police said.

The Lewiston girl was taken to Central Maine Medical Center and later to a Portland hospital with burns and other injuries. She was still being evaluated at Maine Medical Center on Thursday night.

When other drivers jumped out of their cars to help at the crash site, the girl's feet and lower legs were sticking out from the underside of the car. The rest of her was pinned beneath it.

"She was screaming," said Gary Bernier, one of the first men at the scene. "The woman who hit her was going to keep driving forward. My buddy jumped out and told her to stop."

Dubois's injuries included a burn suffered when she became trapped beneath the car's muffler.

Within seconds of the crash, neighbors and other drivers at the busy intersection were contributing to the rescue effort. They rounded up car jacks and bricks from the side of a nearby house in an attempt to lift the car off the girl.

"It looked like the tires went right over her legs," said 17-year-old Alex Lafreniere, who was driving from the high school when he came across the crash site. "I ran over to see if I could help."

Lafreniere ran back to his car and got a jack. Police began to arrive at the scene, and they rounded up more jacks, including those from the Buick and from arriving cruisers.

Meanwhile, Dubois was mostly motionless beneath the car.

"It looked like she was sleeping," said Willie Heutz, who was visiting his father at a nearby home. "Her eyes were closed."

But police and witnesses who squatted on the ground to examine the girl found that she was awake and alert.

"She was talking and everything," Lafreniere said. "She was conscious the whole time."

The girl was able to provide her mother's telephone number when asked by police. She even made nervous jokes with the officers as they spoke with her, police said.

Meanwhile, it was a flurry of activity around her.

Mike Gagnon, an off-duty public works employee, began organizing the rescue efforts. Lewiston police Detective Brian O'Malley ran to a house on the corner and began tearing out large cinder blocks to help shore up the car.

"I just donated the bricks," said the man who lives at the home. "They did everything else."

How Dubois was run over remained unclear. The car, a Buick 4-door driven by 88-year-old Alma Caux of Lewiston, was traveling toward downtown on Webster Street.

When the light turned green, according to some witnesses, one lane of traffic remained stopped as the girl rode her bike into the intersection. In the other lane, Caux began to drive through, striking the girl and knocking her to the ground, they said. Her body twisted and became lodged beneath the car in a contorted position.

Police and fire crews used several jacks to lift the car, the bricks and other items to prop it up. They set wheel guards around the tires so the car would not move forward or back. They slid an air bag beneath the car to lift it off the ground even more.

As a crowd of more than 100 people stood watching, rescue crews eased the girl out from beneath the car and loaded her onto a back board. Police commended the people who came to Dubois' rescue, donating jacks or helping in other ways.

"They were right on top of it," said police Lt. Mike Parshall.

In the aftermath of the wreck, a stone wall at the edge of a yard remained dismantled, torn apart by rescuers who needed the cinder blocks to prop up the Buick.

"I'm not worried about that," said the man who owns the property. "I'll take care of that in the morning. I just hope the girl makes out OK."

The intersection at Webster Street and East Avenue, one of the city's busiest, remained closed into the early evening as police reconstructed the crash.

Lafreniere, the 17-year-old who rushed to help Dubois, said it was impressive to watch so many people jump to into action all at once.

"She's lucky there were this many people around to help her," he said.