J. Granger Harriss IV helped to rescue Robert Allen, Jr., from burning, Kenner, Louisiana, December 31, 1998. Allen, 33, was the driver of a car that was hit from behind by a truck while traveling on an interstate highway bridge that spanned a spillway off Lake Pontchartrain. Flames immediately erupted on the rear of the car, which came to rest with its passenger side against the bridge’s concrete rail. Harriss, 22, college student, and a friend were approaching the scene when they saw the car fire. They stopped and learned that the car was occupied. To gain access to the passenger side of the car, Harriss, his friend, and other men picked up the front of the vehicle and, despite advancing flames, moved it away from the bridge rail. After one of the other men kicked out the window to the passenger door and Harriss’s friend started to pull Allen through the window, Harriss, from the narrow space between the rail and the burning car, also grasped Allen and helped to pull. The three men pulled Allen, who was aflame, from the car and carried him away, then extinguished the flames on him. The car was shortly engulfed by flames, and three other persons in the car died at the scene. Allen was taken to the hospital for treatment of extensive burns.
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