Ed Walton Stack rescued Charlie H. Cothern from burning, Pleasant View, Tennessee, September 6, 1981. Cothern, 33, was the pilot of a small plane that crashed in a field. Stack, 49, highway maintenance foreman, saw the crash and went to the plane. As fuel leaked from one of the plane’s tanks, Stack and another man opened the plane’s door, with difficulty, after which the other man removed the plane’s passenger. The plane then caught fire, and despite rapidly spreading flames and increasing heat, Stack partially entered the plane, seized Cothern, and pulled him out. Cothern recovered from extensive second-degree burns; Stack recovered from lesser burns.
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