Alan R. Cote

Alan R. Cote helped save Cohen D. Bergeron and Fallon R. Andrews from burning, Auburn, New Hampshire, October 23, 2019. Bergeron and Andrews, both 23, were trapped, seat-belted and semi-conscious, in Bergeron’s burning vehicle after it left a two-lane, rural road at night and crashed into a roadside tree. The impact spun the car over the remnants of a rock wall, which scraped the bottom of the car and caused its fuel tank to leak, before coming to rest against another tree. The passenger door could not be opened. Cote, 54, public works superintendent, heard the crash from his home about 500 feet away. Donning clothes and running up his driveway, he saw an orange glow, which he assumed was the vehicle burning, and yelled for his wife to call 911 as he ran to the scene. A neighbor was awakened by the crash commotion as his adult daughter heard the crash and called out for help. He also dressed and left his home about 550 feet away. Arriving first, Cote saw Bergeron in the driver’s seat. Cote forced open the driver’s door and extended his torso across Bergeron’s lap and attempted to unfasten his seatbelt as flames from the engine compartment intensified and lapped over the windshield area. Once freed, Cote grasped Bergeron from behind and pulled him out of the vehicle as another neighbor arrived and helped carry Bergeron to safety. Cote returned to the car, where the other neighbor was attempting to remove Andrews, and, reaching through the broken-out passenger window used a knife to cut her seat belt near her shoulder. The neighbor, grasping Andrews around the torso and pulling, inched her across the console and driver’s seat and out of the car through the open driver’s door. There, Cote and others helped carry Andrews to safety. Andrews suffered extensive injuries in the crash, but she was not burned.