Walter H. Nagel, 32, assistant water supply foreman, helped to save Donald C. Seiler, 24, military airplane pilot, from burning, Anchorage, Alaska, August 3, 1951. A jet-propelled airplane Seiler was flying crashed and ripped apart in a wooded swamp, felling trees over an area 300 feet long at the shore of a lake. One section of the fuselage 10 feet long enclosing the cockpit remained intact. Seiler, who was secured to his seat by a safety belt and shoulder harness, sustained severe injuries and was rendered unconscious. Gasoline draining from the wreckage was ignited, and scattered flames a foot high rose from the ground for a radius of 12 feet from the cockpit. Dense flames rose 30 feet above one of the wing sections. Machine-gun ammunition was strewn over the ground and began discharging at rapid intervals. A tree fell across the cockpit and partly covered Seiler. The crash attracted Nagel, Herbert V. Enberg, Daniel M. Parmenter, Charles H. Stowell, Fred L. Whitmire, Loyd H. Miller, and Joseph H. Parker, all of whom proceeded in automobiles to the edge of the swamp and laboriously made their way on foot for a quarter-mile to the clearing. By that time, Ward I. Gay and Kenneth L. Gerondale, who had landed their seaplane on the lake, had entered the clearing. Advancing through the scattered flames, the men removed the tree and obtained holds on Seiler. Enberg and Parmenter released the safety belt, and Whitmire cut the shoulder harness free of the seat. The flames on one wing section 10 feet from the cockpit then were six feet high. Raising Seiler from the seat, the men carried him from the fire area and continued to the lake. Within two minutes after the men had left the airplane, a violent gasoline explosion occurred near the cockpit. Seiler, who had a fractured skull and other serious injuries, was flown to a seaplane base by Gay and was removed to a hospital. He recovered in six months. 3816-42756
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