Phillip E. Rog helped to rescue Virginia C. Alvarado and five children from burning, Oregon, Illinois, August 20, 1995. Ms. Alvarado, 38, was one of 13 people in a van that caught fire in a two-vehicle highway accident. Rog, 48, teacher, and his teen-age son had been traveling behind the van and arrived at the scene moments after the accident. They responded to the van, where Rog broke out a window at the rear of the passenger side. Despite flames speading to the van’s interior from the front where they had originated, Rog leaned into the van, grasped Ms. Alvarado, and pulled her through the window; he and his son then carried her to the side of the highway. Rog and his son returned to the van, in which flames were continuing to spread, and, in repeated entries through the broken rear window and through another window that the son broke out, removed five children, who ranged in age from 5 to 11. Intensifying flames which engulfed the van forced them away and claimed the lives of the van’s remaining occupants. Ms. Alvarado was hospitalized one month for treatment of serious injuries and burns, and the children all required hospital treatment for injury. Rog also was treated at the hospital, for first-degree burns to his face and arms and other injury. He recovered.
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