Danvers man pulls crash victim from car
Vehicle burst into flames, police say
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 yesterday 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, ran outside after hearing the crash, went into the burning car, and pulled the unconscious woman to safety, police said.
Scalia said that the accident happened just 50 feet from his bedroom and that 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 onto the passenger’s seat. He tried to wake her up without success.
“So I grabbed her and pulled her out,’’ he said. “At that point, the whole hood of the car was on fire. A couple minutes later, when firefighters got there, it went up in flames.’’
Sergeant Robert Bettencourt, a Police 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,’’ he said. “I didn’t think there was anything heroic about it. I was here, and I did what needed to be done.’’
The woman, whom police declined to identify, was taken to Beverly Hospital and later transferred to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Her injuries were not life-threatening, Bettencourt said. The accident is under investigation.
