That's what the headline said in late summer 1965. I remember it because I was 7 and could read it myself. And there was the picture on the front page. My 26 year old brother and my 50 year old Dad standing on either side of a young man, holding him up.

At 7 I was still sleeping in my parents bedroom, in the old farm house, on a curvy road, south east of town. It was s hot September night and the windows were all open in the ground floor bedroom. All of a sudden I was awake. It was around 1 or 2 AM and I woke my Mom up and asked for a drink....... That's when we heard the screams.

HELP! HELP ME! OH,GOD HELP!

Mom roused Dad and he quickly threw on his old chore coat over pajamas and drove off east down the road to investigate. It scared me how fast he was driving down our drive way when he got back. He ran in the house and woke my oldest brother and they left with the car and the old Ford 8n tractor.

The young couple were driving home after a double feature at the drive in on a Friday night to their small town 20 miles south. He had missed a little jog in the road at the top of a rise. Into a field and rolled the car. It was upside down and his wife was trapped inside. And it was starting to burn.

Mom was on the phone to the county sheriff and the fire department while my Dad was was leaving. Dad had grabbed a log chain and 2 carbon tetrachloride grenades. When they got there they used the tractor to yank a door open so they could get to the woman. Her legs were horribly trapped under the dash. And she was 9 months pregnant. They could see the baby moving. The Mother was mostly unconscious but would react to the pain of them trying to free her.

Something was burning in the trunk, gas was leaking, they could hear it sizzling, dripping some where they couldn't see and couldn't find. They threw one terribly poisonous carbontet grenade that failed to break the glass capsule, the next crashed on the under carriage doing nothing.

3 Stand and Watch as 1 Burns. The photographer showed up before the Sheriff, before the Fire Dept. (volunteer at that time) and did not a thing to help. The grainy picture of three men watching a woman burn didn't capture the bloody fingers of 3 men who had just been digging with their bare hands. My Dad and Brother both told of crawling in to the wreck over and over to rip out a burning piece of upholstery and to try to throw dirt on the flames. I couldn't recognize my Dad and Brother in the picture, the look on their faces....

646 yards from the wreck to the bedroom window. Nearest house, 125 yards, couldn't rouse them. Like wise the second nearest house, 284 yards. Both may have had tools, a fire extinguisher, ideas, help of any kind besides taking pictures. I remember Mom singing to me to drown out the screams.

Dad didn't go to work the next day and mostly stayed in the bedroom. You knew it was bad if Dad missed work. Big Brother stayed in his room all day too.

I went to school Monday and got the questions. I remember the most popular, prettiest, girl coming over to me and asking why my Daddy didn't do anything. I hope she was too young to see the colors I was turning, and after over hearing Dad talking to Mom about the photographer, I told her flat out that there were 4 people there and only 1 did nothing.

My Dad was a truck farmer and a florist, and the stellar Father of 6 kids, not a skilled first res ponder. It was all over before anyone other than the photographer got there. I wonder about the closer neighbors that didn't or wouldn't answer the door. Things moved slow back then. No 911. The wreck stayed in the field until Thursday. My school bus route went by it everyday on the way home for 4 days. Even in my 7 year old mind, I could feel the horror and despair that had transpired there.

Wow, Duke, that's a terrible thing to have to experience. I've been fortunate, I suppose that the ones that I have been to have all been beyond help.

Jesus.

Quite a story! I can see why it has stayed so vividly in your mind over the years.

Horrible that anyone should have to witness such a tragedy in utter helplessness; even more so a child. Obviously this is haunting you, but just as obviously, this was not you or your family's fault.

Rest in Peace, You did everything possible and should bear no guilt in the matter.

As an aside, shouldn't the story have been called "four stand and watch" instead of three? What did the photographer do to help, besides label denigrate people helpless to provide rescue?

I hope Karma visited upon that so-called reporter - and continues to do so if the jackwagon is still lives.

I can't even imagine the helplessness you father and brother felt not being able to free her. It would be a difficult task to get over the sights, sounds, and smell of that night. I hope you father and brother knew they did all they could. I can't even imagine why a reporter would use that for their headline.

Hollywood and pop culture glorify the heroic rescue.

Real life doesn't always work like that.

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My father had a good friend, a police officer, who told the story of watching a man trapped under the dash of a big fuel truck, burn to death screaming the whole time. He said a few times he seriously thought about shooting the man an ending it for him, but didn't, knowing what would probably happen to him if he did. Instead he just had to listen to the whole horrible thing.

Your dad and brother did all they could with what was at hand. Nobody can fault them for that. When I took my EMT Basic training in 1982 our instructor held up the book on the first night and said "this is a textbook, there is nothing out there like a textbook incident."

How well I know that. Dynamics of a collision makes the results different each time.

Extrication means improvise. One incident stands out, the Hurst Tool was of no use. We finally used our pumper and a bystander's pickup to spread the truck enough to remove the patient. The Hurst Tool could not stretch the cab enough to remove the victim. He was literally wedged between the front seat, the dash panel, the door frame and door. Literally the upper part of his body was outside between the door frame and the door shell. He survived but I later heard not in a good way.

That was probably the worst extrication I ever participated in.

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
Hollywood and pop culture glorify the heroic rescue.

Real life doesn't always work like that.

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Yeah, it's not an episode of "Emergency"...............now I'm dating myself.

My cousin was involved in a wreck on a busy parkway. His car went off the road, struck a tree, and started to burn. Three men in a landscaping truck stopped and all three suffered burns trying to free my cousin from the wreckage. They couldn't get him out and he died on that parkway.

The police told my elderly aunt that my cousin was unconscious and likely already dead from impact when the car burned. Then my aunt saw the news, where it was reported that bystanders heard the horrible screaming while my cousin burned to death. Fuck the news reporters. We're all intelligent enough to fill in the ugly details. It would not be a disservice to the community to simply report the incident without adding injury to loved ones.


Your family shouldn't have been disrespected in that way. People risking life and limb are not standing idly by.

How many times have you seen on the news where someone has died and the TV reporter sticks a microphone in the face of a grieving family member and asks, "How do you feel?"

I don't have a word to describe how I feel about those reporters.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cas:
My father had a good friend, a police officer, who told the story of watching a man trapped under the dash of a big fuel truck, burn to death screaming the whole time. He said a few times he seriously thought about shooting the man an ending it for him, but didn't, knowing what would probably happen to him if he did. Instead he just had to listen to the whole horrible thing.[/QUOTE

This story was discussed when I was in High School Religious Ed class in 1984. The gist of the discussion was about the morality of either choice the officer faced. As a person of action, this story haunted my thoughts over the years. I would have ended the person's torment if faced with the choice.

Duke's original post is very heartbreaking to read. Especially of the photographer's and other neighbor's inaction.

In spite the moronic headline, and sad outcome, you and your family should definitely be very proud of the valiant efforts of your Father and Brother!