Heroes brave inferno to save crash victim
Published: March 16, 2007
Motorists on Interstate 93 rushed to help victims of a head-on Andover crash, rescuing one victim amid fire and small explosions but finding it too late to save another.
Bill Merrill, an off-duty firefighter and EMT from Windham, N.H., who stopped to help, described the flames at the scene as “like the Hindenburg.”
According to state police, Pamela Duggan, 40, of Bedford, was driving northbound in the southbound lane when her 2004 Ford Explorer struck a 1993 Cadillac operated by 37 year-old Jose Dejesus Rivera of Nashua, NH, who was pronounced dead on the scene.
“I saw a bright flash in my rearview mirror and there were no police cars around at the time so I pulled my car over in the grass of the highspeed lane, and hurdled the guardrail to help,” said Merrill.
Merrill arrived second to the scene and witnessed two young men pulling Duggan from the destruction.
“There was a guy in the car, but he was already dead and there was no getting near the wreck. It was like the Hindenburg, and there was little else that anyone could do,” said Merrill.
“Fire was burning, and there were a few explosions from the tires or gas shocks. It was very loud and we were close to it,” he said.
Duggan was unconscious and in bad shape with a broken leg.
“The woman had good pulse and we made sure her airways were open, and worked on keeping her head straight until more help arrived,” said Merrill. “Keeping her warm and her airways open was our priortiy at the time.”
Duggan was taken by helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital with serious injuries. The crash is still under investigation.
Merrill assisted other EMTs with splinting Duggan’s leg, but doesn’t consider himself a hero.
The two young men who pulled her from the wreck remain unidentified and unknown according to state police.
Merrill, who has been crosstrained for such fire/accident emergencies, said his fellow passers-by “worked well as a team and pulled together nicely.”
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