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Good Samaritan hailed in Danvers rescue

E-mail|Link|Comments () November 25, 2009 06:04 PM

By Michaela Stanelun, Globe Correspondent

A young man from Danvers is being hailed as a hero after pulling a woman from a burning car that had crashed in front of his home early this morning.

Danvers police said a 23-year-old Danvers woman was driving her Ford Focus on Strawberry Hill Lane at 12:30 a.m. when she crashed into a telephone pole. The car immediately burst into flames.

Michael Scalia, 24, a resident of 4 Strawberry Hill Lane, ran outside after hearing the crash, went into the burning car, and pulled the unconscious woman to safety, police said.

Scalia said the accident happened just 50 feet from his bedroom and he could see the car was on fire. He ran out the door barefoot.

"I knew the driver had to get out of the car," he said in a telephone interview.

He said he found the young woman sitting in the driver's seat but slumped over into the passenger's seat. He tried to wake her up but without success.

"So I grabbed her and pulled her out. At that point, the whole hood of the car was on fire," he said.

"A couple minutes later, when firefighters got there, it was up in flames," he said.

Sergeant Robert Bettencourt, a department spokesman, said a police supervisor who was at the scene had told him that Scalia "absolutely saved her life."

Scalia shrugged off the idea that he was a hero.

"I definitely wouldn't call myself a hero. I didn't think there was anything heroic about it. I was here and I did what needed to be done," he said.

The woman was taken to Beverly Hospital and later transferred to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Her injuries are non-life-threatening, Bettencourt said. The accident is under investigation