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FF Risks Life, Saves Woman Stuck in Live Wires
The Independent via YellowBrix
August 16, 2010
FORT ERIE – A woman is trapped inside a crashed, burning car energized by fallen hydro wires.
Every time she touches the car’s frame to get out, she gets shocked by the wires’ electrical power vibrating through the vehicle.
That is the scene volunteer firefighter Captain Robert Puttick arrived to Saturday.
Off-duty during the 9:30 p.m. crash, Puttick said when he surveyed the situation — a car, on fire, slammed into a hydro pole — he had to act fast.
“I knew in a matter of minutes the car would be engulfed in flames,” he said.
Robert Puttick
Knowing that he could not wait for the help that was on the way, Puttick rushed to help, even though he was dressed in casual clothes and did not have his protective gear.
He said he knew he had to pull out the woman, who was shaking, without either of them touching the car.
Luckily, the passenger door had flung open in the crash, so he told her to kneel at its edge and hold on to his shoulders. He grabbed her legs from underneath.
“I grabbed her and pulled her out quick,” he said, adding they then ran away from the flames.
“When we looked back the car was engulfed in flames.”
The woman, believed to be in her 30s or 40s, was checked by paramedics but sustained no injuries.
