Marc A. Dilley helped to save Wendy S. Roberts from burning, Skykomish, Washington, March 14, 1998. Ms. Roberts, 52, was trapped inside the sport utility vehicle she had been driving after the vehicle left the roadway, went down an embankment, and, overturned, broke into flame. Dilley, 46, research technologist, witnessed the accident while a passenger in another vehicle, which then stopped at the scene. He and his wife immediately responded to Ms. Roberts’s vehicle, which supported flames from its engine compartment and from which gasoline was pouring from the filler opening on the driver’s side. Dilley opened the driver’s door and cut Ms. Roberts’s safety belt with a pocketknife. Ms. Roberts dropped to the ceiling of the vehicle. Dilley and his wife then reached into the vehicle, grasped Ms. Roberts, and pulled her out. They dragged her away from the vehicle moments before a major eruption of flame at the vehicle that then engulfed it. Ms. Roberts was treated at the hospital for lacerations and bruises, from which she recovered.
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