Johnny P. Senn helped to rescue Justin A. Wilks from burning, Spring Hill, Alabama, November 12, 2004. Semiconscious, Wilks, 21, was trapped in the driver’s seat of a burning pickup truck after a highway accident at night. Traveling together on the same road, Senn, 39, who was an off-duty state trooper, and a friend responded to the scene. Hearing Wilks scream, they went to the driver’s door of the truck, despite flames issuing from its front end and leaking gasoline on the pavement. The other man forced open the door, then extended his upper body into the truck and released Wilks’s safety belt as Senn also reached into the truck and worked to free Wilks’s feet from the pedals. As Senn then grasped Wilks about the legs, the other man held him by the upper body. They pulled him from the truck just moments before an explosive rush of flames engulfed the vehicle and spread to another vehicle nearby that also had been involved in the accident. Wilks was hospitalized three days for treatment of injuries sustained in the accident, including a minor burn.
78087 – 8965
78087-8965