Lifesaver won’t call himself a hero
Published: October 14, 2005
The smoke billowed thick and black when Shawn Reese ran up, while the Buick, tilted sideways, lay smashed against the pillar of a highway overpass.
If the passenger-side window hadn’t been exposed at the bottom of the wreck, the man inside might never have made it. But Reese, who ran to the raging flames along Interstate 95 in Palm Beach Gardens, saw a head and arm dangling from inside.
With little time for contemplation, Reese reached in and pulled the man out, cutting his own hand in the process. Then he smashed a window to peer in and make sure no one else was inside.
One of the man’s legs was burning and had to be doused with a fire extinguisher. His eyes were open but he did not move or talk. Until a bystander found a pulse, Reese thought he was dead.
But the man, 52-year-old James Vignoli of Jupiter, lived. On Thursday afternoon, he was listed in critical condition at St. Mary’s Medical Center, just hours after the 10 a.m. crash.
Reese, a 31-year-old Jupiter electrician, scoffed at any hero labels, but he was being credited with saving Vignoli’s life.
“If he had remained in that car, he certainly would have burned up,” Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Tim Frith said. “There’s no doubt about that. He simply did save the guy’s life.”
Reese was having none of it. FHP troopers had to persuade him to speak to reporters about the incident.
“People try playing that. I ain’t no hero,” Reese said. “This guy just needed help. It’s just something you do.”
The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating how the crash occurred. Vignoli’s Buick did not strike any other vehicles. A witness reported that it seemed to veer for no apparent reason from the center lane onto the shoulder of the road and into a pillar of the Central Boulevard overpass.
The crash shut down all three lanes of southbound I-95 for about 20 minutes and caused backups long afterward.
Reese moved on quickly. After giving a statement to investigators and reluctantly talking to a television station, he got back in his truck and continued to his destination: a construction site in Boynton Beach
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