Gregory Gobble saved Angela L. and Ashtyn E. Evans from burning, Tovey, Illinois, June 17, 1998. Ms. Evans, 23, and her daughter Ashtyn, 3 weeks old, were trapped inside an automobile after a head-on collision with another vehicle. Flames broke out in the car’s engine area. Another motorist, Gobble, 30, financial consultant, arrived at the scene just after the accident. He ran to the burning car, where he found Ms. Evans in the driver’s seat, trapped by wreckage, and Ashtyn restrained in a car seat on the car’s front passenger seat. Gobble extended his body into the car through its opened driver’s door. He released Ashtyn from her car seat, then withdrew from the car and handed her to his wife, who also had approached the burning car. Gobble then attempted to release Ms. Evans’s safety belt but was not successful. He turned to look for a cutting tool but thought to recline the seat. He reached into the car again and lowered the back of the driver’s seat. With flames up against the windshield and beginning to enter the car’s interior, Gobble grasped Ms. Evans underneath her arms and pulled her under the safety belt and out of the car. He dragged her away from the car, the front of which was shortly covered with flames. Ms. Evans required hospitalization for extensive injury sustained in the accident.
72878 – 8320
72878-8320