Ronald C. Morris helped to save Dennis R. Carney from burning, Waynesboro, Mississippi, September 8, 2003. Carney, 28, was the driver of a tractor-trailer that, in a roadway accident, overturned into a ditch along the road shoulder and caught fire in its engine area. Unconscious, he was pinned upside down in the wreckage, a leg caught in the steering wheel. Driving behind Carney, Morris, 36, business operator, witnessed the accident and stopped at the scene. He approached the exposed driver’s side of the tractor, the cab of which was filling with smoke, and, with another motorist who had stopped, attempted to open the door. Unsuccessful, Morris and the other man returned to their vehicles for metal bars for use in prying open the door, but that effort failed also. Morris used his bar to break out the door’s window. Reaching into the cab, he and the other man unfastened Carney’s safety belt, then grasped him about the upper body and repeatedly tugged to release him. Exhorting Carney to free his leg, Morris and the other man then pulled him through the window as flame conditions worsened, debris from the burning tractor dropping about them. Morris and the other man carried Carney to safety on the road shoulder shortly before flames overtook the tractor, destroying it. Taken to the hospital, Carney suffered cuts and bruises, from which he recovered.
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