Kenneth W. Marrero saved Michael F. Tomlin from burning, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, July 30, 2001. Tomlin, 19, was seated inside a pickup truck parked on the shoulder of a highway when another vehicle left the highway and struck it from behind. The impact forced Tomlin’s pickup into a drill rig parked in front of it, and fire broke out at both the front and rear ends of Tomlin’s pickup. Tomlin, who struck his head during the impact, remained in the driver’s seat, dazed. His coworker, Marrero, 41, senior drill operator, who had been driving the drill rig, went to Tomlin’s pickup and looked inside, but because of dense smoke in the cab, he could not see Tomlin. Marrero opened the pickup’s passenger door and climbed inside. He grasped Tomlin and pulled him across the seat as he backed out of the truck. Finding that Tomlin was caught in the wreckage, Marrero re-entered the cab and freed him, then pulled him out of the cab. The pickup was engulfed by flame soon afterward. Tomlin was hospitalized for treatment of injuries received during the impact, and he recovered.
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