Jason C. Newby helped attempt to rescue Dwight H. Handley from burning, Mulhall, Oklahoma, April 3, 2015. Handley, 62, was the driver of a tractor-trailer that, in an interstate highway accident, struck a disabled tractor-trailer and came to rest shortly beyond it. Flames broke out at the front of Handley’s badly damaged rig and quickly grew and spread along the tractor toward its tank trailer, and heavy, black smoke issued from the wreckage. Driving on the same highway, Newby, 44, youth pastor, witnessed the accident and was positioning his vehicle at the scene when a man approached, alerted him that Handley was still alive, and asked him for a fire extinguisher. Newby provided the man with a fire extinguisher and, taking one himself, ran with the man to the passenger side of Handley’s truck. When they were at a point about 15 feet opposite the passenger door, and before they could activate their fire extinguishers, the truck’s cargo tank, containing residual gasoline and fumes, exploded, blowing them 20 feet away, off the roadway. Flames grew to engulf and destroy the tractor-trailer. Handley died in the accident. Newby sustained severe injury to his right leg, which required three days’ hospitalization for treatment, including surgery.
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