Clezell Taylor, 30, gasoline station proprietor, saved Wilmer L. Hoover, 44, dock foreman, from burning, Houston, Texas, August 17, 1956. At an intersection an automobile struck a pickup truck which Hoover was driving, causing it to overturn and burst.into flames. Hoover was unable to open the cab door or to break the windshield of the truck, which lay on the driver’s side with the top of its cab against the curb opposite Taylor’s gasoline station. Taylor who wore coveralls on which there was much grease and oil, ran 90 feet to the truck, where six-foot flames rose from the exposed understructure and flared intermittently above the top of the cab. Stepping into an area two feet wide between the curb and the engine, Taylor kicked the windshield but did not break it. Heat became intense as flames flared up two feet from Taylor, causing him to withdraw momentarily. On his second attempt Taylor broke the glass and stepped back quickly as flames again rose near him. No flames yet had appeared inside the cab as Hoover crawled through the hole in the windshield. A minute after Taylor had broken the glass, fire broke out in the engine and spread to the cab. Firemen summoned by Taylor extinguished the flames, but the truck was a total loss. Hoover sustained no burns. Taylor suffered burns of the face which healed in five days. 43935-4121
43935 – 4121
43935-4121