Almost two years ago, I pulled this human being –
– out of this car
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
Seven minutes elapsed from the time I pulled over, to the moment I left the scene.
[I know, because I was calling 911 as I ran to the car, and the call log shows 7:43pm. The time stamp from the last shot (taken right before I drove off) was 7:50pm].
In California, Smoke Always Gets My Attention
It was a Sunday evening in the Spring of 2022. Mate and I had both spent the week laid up in bed with our first rounds of Covid. I was driving home from the office. I had gone in on the weekend to grab my computer, so I could work from home the next week. The day was warm and I had no intention of interacting with anyone, so I was wearing a t-shirt and a pair of (ridiculously light and short) swim trunks that I only wear around the house.
It was just getting on towards dusk. Up ahead, where the road began to curve, a puff of smoke drifted from the trees on the right shoulder. At first I thought it must be a fire from a homeless encampment (not uncommon). This is California, and we had been suffering from terrible wildfires, so a fire in the trees would be bad.
There were few cars on the highway. It was easy to slow way down and get a good look as I was passing. I had my phone out with 911 punched in, ready to alert emergency response as soon as I knew what was happening.
As I drew abreast, I saw a vehicle up against a tree. Smoke filled the interior, drifting out from under the hood.
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
The driver side door was closed and there was no one outside the vehicle. I knew someone was trapped.
The Long Seven Minutes Begin
I had already slowed significantly and I immediately pulled off the shoulder, dialing 911 as I got out of my car. I grabbed my keys before I shut the door (which turned out to be fortuitous). Running to the crash, my 911 call failed; it sounded like a busy signal or something. I wondered if I was in a bad service area (totally possible on that stretch of road), so I pocketed my phone, cursing.
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
As I got to the crash I saw what looked like molten fire dripping from the bottom of the engine. And now smoke was pouring faster from under the hood. The car was slammed right up into a pine tree.
I ran to the driver side door and tried the handle, but it wouldn’t open. The interior of the vehicle was just FULL of smoke; it was basically opaque. I was yelling to anyone inside, but there was no response.
Moving around the car trying each door, I found they were all locked. At the passenger side, I could see NOTHING through the window. Flames now rose from the front left corner of the vehicle into the pine tree, the fire licking the branches.
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
Running back around the vehicle to the driver side, I saw that another motorist had pulled over. He was out of his car and had his phone out. I was relieved; I wouldn’t need to worry about calling 911 again.
Peering closely through the driver side window, I realized I could just make out an arm resting against the door! I began shouting more forcefully and banging on the window. But there was no response.
Then I remembered that I had my keys in my pocket. And that I had an aluminum spike on the ring that I was using for a key chain. It’s the sort of thing they sell as an emergency self-defense weapon and tool. I had always just assumed it was something you could use to break glass if you were ever trapped in a car.
The Wrong Tool For The Job
I grabbed the spike and swung it hard against the window. But it didn’t break! I hit it again, harder. And again, and again, and nothing happened. But the impacts were very sharp and very loud. Loud enough to awaken the driver, who began to move and call out. The voice was muffled, and I couldn’t understand the words. I was yelling “Open the door! Open the door! You have to get out!”
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
I could see and hear some activity as the driver attempted to get the door open, without success. More faint shouting, but I couldn’t make out the words. The smoke was beginning to make breathing difficult for me, and I couldn’t imagine what it must be like inside. And the driver had been breathing nothing but smoke since before I even arrived on scene.
Stepping back from the car to try and collect my wits, I saw the other fellow standing closer now with his phone to his ear and his lips moving. He had to be connected with police dispatch. Looking back at the car, the fire was concentrated on the driver side corner, but it was moving back towards the interior, through the tree branches, the underbrush, the engine compartment itself. I could feel the heat from the fire even from a distance, and my poolside outfit offered zero protection. Within moments I would be unable to work from beside the driver’s door.
I felt terrible anxiety. For a second I wondered if I would have to stand there and watch while someone burned to death in front of me. It was a horrific feeling. I wouldn’t be able to handle witnessing that in complete helplessness. Should I find myself in that position, convinced there was NOTHING I could do to help, I knew that I would simply run as far and as fast as I could.
Preparation
I was raised in a very stressful and physically grueling trade, with my high-intensity Type-A father (a.k.a. “Ironhorse”) for a boss. We’ve each left the field decades ago, but to this day we both have occasional PTSD dreams about it. It was the sort of environment that routinely forced you to take immediate action under stress to prevent a bad situation from rapidly deteriorating.
Oh yeah, and the pay was lousy.
My best friend worked with us a bit during the summertime, while we were both in high school. He went on to the army, and maintains that nothing in boot camp was as hard as what we dealt with regularly.
In short, it sucked.
But it did shape me, for better and for worse. It imparted a “Failure Is NOT An Option!” “Press On Regardless!” mindset. I believe that mindset has produced some life-damaging consequences, and I have worked to let it go.
But it is also a resource that’s proven its worth.
In that moment I was able to pause, take a deep breath, and collect myself. I could step back physically, emotionally, and mentally to reflect, for just a few seconds, on the situation and my environment.
“The Solution Is Always Right In Front Of You”
Ironhorse often remarks that he can always find the resources to fix a problem he is dealing with if he just looks around where he is standing. [I reply that he’s right, but only because we are slobs and leave all sorts of stuff strewn about our habitat].
But he IS right. An essential component of intelligence is tool improvisation. It’s an intelligence we are losing here in the “developed” world, but you can see it everywhere in less developed nations.
So I took stock of my surroundings. There were tools everywhere.
The car had crashed into a pine tree, but it was a loner in a grove of eucalyptus. Eucalyptus trees shed hardwood branches of all sizes and shapes continually, and these were everywhere. (Along with their bark, which was actually part of the problem; the stuff burns like matchbooks).
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
A promising spar lay nearby. It was long enough to provide high tangential speed, heavy and hard enough to shatter glass. So I grabbed it and started busting out the windows. I began with the rear hatch, then hit the two rear passenger windows. I didn’t smash the driver’s window. (The fire was too close to work there anyway, and I didn’t think showering the driver in broken glass while clubbing him in the head would help matters).
I had hoped that this would at least dissipate the smoke. That way the driver could breathe, and I could see what I was dealing with. While the smoke did begin to disperse, it was agonizingly slow. And whatever smoke did escape just added to what was produced by the blaze. I was already trying to catch air farther from the car, and breath as little as possible when I was close.
Plan C
I looked through the broken rear window but could see nothing. For a moment I contemplated crawling in through the back hatch and trying to extract the driver bodily. Then I thought of my daughter. Maybe it was just a justification for my flagging courage; I can’t say. But in any case, I ruled that option out.
The eucalyptus spar was still in my hand. It was six or seven feet long. I put one foot on the bumper, leaned in through the hatch, and began to prod and tap where the driver should be. “Grab the stick! You have to grab the stick!!! GRAB THE STICK!!!” I shouted.
I was fishing for the driver.
The Seven Minutes That Justify My Existence
Fishers Of Men
Almost immediately I felt resistance and weight on the spar! I was elated! Now pulling, firmly but slowly, I was able to draw the stick back, maybe a yard.
Then suddenly it went slack.
I leaned in through the back of the hatch as far as I could. Through the clearing smoke I could barely make out a hand reaching towards me, the arm vanishing into smoke! It was just close enough to grab! I reached out and caught it by the wrist, and then pulled forcefully. The driver slid easily through the car towards the rear hatch! Now I could see a man’s head and shoulders, and I was able to grab him bodily and lift his torso out through the hatch.
It was a young man. His eyes were very wide, and vividly, brightly blue. He was in a daze.
As I struggled to pull him through the window, his jeans caught on broken glass. After a couple tugs I looked over to the man still on the phone with emergency services and barked angrily for him to give me a hand! He snapped out of his stupor and helped me unhook the driver. We pull him the rest of the way out and laid him on the ground, then dragged him away from the flames.
He lay on his back, eyes still wide and blazing blue, staring straight up at the sky. I was yelling, “Is there anyone else in the car!?” but he was completely unresponsive.
Help Arrives
I ran back around to the passenger side to see if the smoke had cleared enough to get a look inside. The fire wasn’t so bad there yet, so I could get pretty close. But as I ran to the door I heard someone shout, “Use the fire extinguisher!”
I stopped and glanced around. Again, “Use the fire extinguisher!”
I was looking about wildly. I couldn’t even tell where the voice was coming from, let alone where this fire extinguisher was supposed to be! The shout came again. I saw, through a thicket further away off the shoulder and close to some residences, a man standing, holding a fire extinguisher over a fence. I ran over and struggled through the thicket to him.
Grabbing the fire extinguisher, I made my way back to the car. But I was in complete exhaustion by this point.
Fortunately, a few other people had stopped and gathered at the scene. Someone was already running towards me to take the fire extinguisher from my hands. He grabbed it and darted towards the fire on the passenger side. I fell to my knees, completely out of breath.
Leave It to the Professionals
Just then, a voice over a loudspeaker ordered, “Step away from the vehicle!” I looked up to see a sheriff’s deputy exiting a squad car. I got up and began to slowly walk back towards my car.
I saw the young man who was second on the scene, who had called 911 and helped pull the driver out of the rear hatch, and we immediately embraced.
As I was leaving, I had the presence of mind to snap the photos you see here. More cars had pulled over, and a young couple was standing outside their vehicle. They gave me a bottle of water to drink as I tried to catch my breath.
Before I left, I spoke with another couple who had arrived to help just before the sheriff’s deputy. They were walking away from the scene, and I asked if there had been another passenger in the car. They assured me that there had not.
I snapped a couple more photos from a distance. Looking at them later I could see that the driver was well enough to move. One picture shows him sitting on the curb by the sheriff’s car, far from the fire, attended by another passerby.
By this point the fire was climbing up into the trees. I got in my car and drove off, hoping that the fire department could reach the scene before the whole grove began burning out of control.
Aftermath
I was fortunate to get out with only a couple, very minor scratches.
My biggest concern was that I immediately began to develop unpleasant respiratory distress. By the next day I felt like I was slipping into a full Covid relapse. Through my first week of illness, I had experienced no respiratory issues. Now I was coughing, and I had a dreadful taste in my mouth. I was afraid that the smoke combined with Covid might have messed up my lungs. I went to the doctor to get checked out, but the doctors told me not to worry, and sent me home.
Later on, I wondered why I had been unable to break the window with my keychain spike. Inspecting it, I discovered that the tip, originally sharp to a point, had been flattened by pounding against the glass!
Apparently, aluminum just isn’t hard enough for this purpose.
So – Don’t carry an aluminum spike if you are expecting to be able to break a window with it! It will not work!
Epilogue
This is a challenging piece for me to publish, because it feels like the sort of thing someone would write to solicit admiration or acclaim.
It is not. I am not. And it would make me slightly uncomfortable if that were the result.
I actually have a lot more to say about this experience, i.e. – Why am I writing about it now? Why does writing about it make me uncomfortable? What consequences do these phenomena have on my life?
Look for that in a subsequent post (should you be so inclined 🙂
