W. Kevin Snyder saved three children from burning, Union City, Georgia, February 22, 2001. Three children remained in the back seat of a car after an interstate highway accident in which the car, struck from behind, burst into flame. Approaching on the same highway, Snyder, 33, attorney, witnessed the accident. He pulled onto the shoulder, went to the passenger side of the burning car, and, obtaining a piece of metal from another vehicle, broke out both side windows. While others aided the front-seat occupants of the car to safety, Snyder reached into the smoke-filled vehicle through the rear passenger window and removed an unconscious child. He then reached in and removed the second child from the car. To get to the third child, who was restrained in a car seat on the far end of the back seat, Snyder extended nearly all of his body through the window, despite flames on the rear and driver’s side of the car and on its undercarriage. In dense smoke and intense heat, Snyder struggled to free that child’s car seat. He did so, then backed from the car with the child and collapsed to the pavement. Others took them away from the car, the interior of which was shortly engulfed by flames. The children were taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries sustained in the accident. Snyder inhaled smoke, for which he was treated at the scene, and he sustained a burn to his leg and other minor injury.
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