Trio hailed as heroes
Published: February 4, 2006
The three men struggled to pull the dazed woman from her car after it plunged into a retention pond in unincorporated Orland Township.
As they fought to keep her head above water, the car started to sink into the muck.
“I said, ‘Get her out now, or she is drowning,’ ” recalled George Cavelle, a maintenance manager for the CTA who along with two others had raced into the icy waters to rescue the woman.
Cavelle was able to unwrap the seat belt from the woman’s leg, and the three of them dragged her from the car and got her safely to shore.
Now, all three men are being hailed as heroes for rescuing the 47-year-old Orland Park woman Friday morning. They are Cavelle, 38, of Orland Park; Dan O’Halloran, 42, a service manager for a heating and air conditioning contractor from Homer Glen; and Bill Duggan, 46, an off-duty Orland Park police officer from Lockport.
“They are going to be recommended for a citizen’s award” for outstanding actions, said Penny Mateck, a spokeswoman for Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan.
The incident unfolded at 7:30 a.m. Friday when the woman, who was not identified by name, started driving erratically in her 2002 Pontiac Grand Am on Will-Cook Road about a half-mile from 167th in the unincorporated area.
Duggan was headed to his other job at an auto body shop when he saw the car drive in a circle on one side of the road, cross over to the other side, then cross over again.
He jumped out of his own vehicle and he and another man pounded on the runaway car’s windows, but couldn’t rouse the woman, who was slumped over.
The car then went down an embankment and into a retention pond. Duggan said he started to dial 911 on his cell phone, and then stopped a car and asked for something to break a window.
He ran into the 5-foot-plus deep water to help. The car doors wouldn’t open, so he smashed the driver’s window, unhooked her seat belt but still couldn’t get her out.
‘It was like quicksand’
Cavelle, who was returning home from working the overnight shift, and O’Halloran had run down to the side of the pond near where the car had floated. When it was clear that Duggan was struggling, the two went into the water.
“I remember just freezing,” said Cavelle. And it was so muddy, “it was like quicksand.”
Cavelle reached into the car and freed her leg, and then all three men pulled her out of the car, making sure her head stayed out of the water, which was by then up to their chins. They rested her on the submerged hood of the car momentarily before dragging her out of the water. When O’Halloran looked back, only the car’s roof was above water.
On shore, neighbors in the subdivision tossed down blankets and other passersby came to the aid of the woman.
“All the people involved were so heroic,” said O’Halloran, who downplayed his own role.
The woman was taken to Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet in stable condition, authorities said. Mateck could not say why the woman had become disoriented in the first place, but the three men all said it appeared she had had a seizure or was in a diabetic coma. A hospital official wouldn’t comment.
Because the woman couldn’t tell authorities if anyone else was in the car, police sent divers into the pond but didn’t find anyone else.
“I’m just happy I was able to do something,” Duggan said. “If she drowns and I can’t get her out, there is going to be something dying within me.”
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