Saul Sermon, Jr, helped to save Antonio M. Gutierrez from burning, Miami, Florida, April 11 1964. When the driver of a compact four-door sedan in which Gutierrez, 57, restaurant employee, was riding swerved sharply to avoid another vehicle on an expressway, the sedan struck the guardrail and rolled across the highway. It stopped upside down at the edge of an exit ramp. The driver, who was badly dazed, climbed out through the broken windshield. Gutierrez, who was seriously injured, lay unconscious inside the automobile as gasoline from the ruptured fuel tank spilled over the upper side of the overturned vehicle and leaked into the passenger compartment. Sermon, 34, truck driver, and Leroy Allen stopped on the highway and ran to the sedan. Both reached into the automobile through the open front door and took hold of Gutierrez but were unable to remove him because one foot was caught. Flames broke out on the upper side of the vehicle and spread rapidly. Sermon and Allen knelt beside the sedan, secured firm holds on Gutierrez, and by a hard jerk pulled him free as flames lapped over the edge of the vehicle within a foot of them. They pulled Gutierrez from the wreckage. When they were five feet away, flames suddenly filled the passenger compartment and rose 10-12 feet into the air. Sermon and Allen dragged Gutierrez down a bank, and another man aided them in moving him farther away from the flames, which completely destroyed the sedan. Gutierrez recovered.
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