Monday, July 14, 2008

Rising from the ashes

Remember that woman whose car I saw go up in flames in front of the Brookline Gap store? The one who I and everyone else on the scene of that horrible car accident thought for sure was dead? According to our local weekly paper, in spite of the car being destroyed, only 17 percent of her body was burned.

“Had they not doused the woman with all those fire extinguishers … she would have perished,” said Gropman. “It was the only part of the car that wasn’t absolutely charred.”
The two guys who turned the fire extinguishers on the burning car (one of whom was definitely just some random shopper in that Gap store, not a store owner, as this article says --I saw the whole thing) have never been identified in any of the news stories I've read on the accident. I hope they have seen the stories and realize that they are responsible for saving a life. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and they're heroes of mine even though I suspect I will never know their names.

2 comments:

Misty said...

I always wonder, when I read stories, who were the silent heroes we may never hear about...

Fraulein said...

The thing I'm still amazed by is that while most of the crowd was kind of paralyzed into inaction, these people just instantly reacted. The guy I saw in the Gap immediately ran up to one of the workers and asked for a fire extinguisher, which they brought out from behind the counter. Then he ran out of the store and went right up to the burning car and sprayed it. He was joined at the same time by someone who had come out from a store on the other side of the street with his own fire extinguisher (all before the fire department even arrived). It was really something to see the fire actually go out, only for a couple of minutes. That was what saved the driver's life.