Douglas M. Carr saved Armand L. Gagner from burning, Chatham, Ontario, September 25, 1999. Gagner, 47, was unconscious inside his car after a highway accident in which the car struck the rear of a tandem tractor-trailer and caught fire. The operator of the tractor-trailer, Carr, 55, truck driver, took the rig to a stop off the highway then responded to the rear of the vehicle, where he found that Gagner’s car was attached to the bumper of the rear trailer. Flames that had broken out in the car’s engine area were spreading up and over its windshield and toward its front doors. Carr opened the back door on the driver’s side of the burning vehicle, fully entered the back-seat area, and moved to the passenger side of the car. He reached over the front seat to where Gagner lay and, putting his arms underneath Gagner’s, pulled him over the seat into the back of the car. Carr then backed out of the vehicle with Gagner and dragged him to its rear. Others who were arriving helped to carry Gagner farther away as flames on the car spread rapidly and soon engulfed it. Gagner required hospital treatment for injuries sustained in the accident, and Carr hurt a thumb and his back. Neither man was burned, and both recovered.
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