Hero didn’t think twice, pulls man out of blazing truck
Published: December 5, 2007
Claude Walker didn’t give it a second thought.
Someone was trapped inside a burning truck on Interstate 80 in Roseville, and Walker didn’t want him to die.
Rushing to the flame-engulfed cab, which was lying on its side after a rollover accident, Walker pulled the cracked windshield out of the way, grabbed the driver under the arms, yanked him out of the wreckage and dragged him to safety.
“I couldn’t let him burn to death,” said Walker, 33, of Rocklin. “I didn’t think twice about what would happen to me. Somebody needed help, and no matter what it took, I was going to get him out of there.”
The California Highway Patrol is calling Walker a hero.
“He definitely saved (the driver’s) life – no doubt about it,” CHP Officer Kelly Baraga said Tuesday. “He saw the man pinned in the truck, got him out and carried him over 100 feet to safety.”
The rescue took place at 4 p.m. Monday in the eastbound lanes of I-80 between the Taylor Road exit and the Highway 65 interchange.
The accident snarled eastbound traffic for hours as the Roseville Fire Department put out the fire and the wreckage was removed. Only one lane of the four-lane highway was open until cleanup efforts ended shortly before 8 p.m., Baraga said.
The CHP said John Crabtree, 56, of Fair Oaks was driving a truck carrying a 2,000-gallon tank of septic waste when he lost control and drifted onto the shoulder. The truck rammed the first post of a guardrail and continued on, taking out 100 feet of the metal rail.
The truck then rolled before striking a large metal pole holding up a sign for the Highway 65 turnoff, the CHP said.
Walker, a carpenter, was a passenger in a pickup being driven by Brandon Mattes, 32, of Antelope. The two were headed home from work in Sacramento and were taking the Taylor Road exit when they noticed the truck on fire just ahead of them.
Mattes cut across the grass divider back onto I-80 and stopped at the burning wreckage.
Walker said other motorists had stopped and were circled around the truck, which he described as a “fireball.”
“They looked like they had tried to get him out, but they couldn’t do any more,” he said. “The whole thing was on fire, and the others couldn’t get close to it anymore.”
Walker said he ran in, putting his back to the flames, and made the rescue. He said he could hear the truck’s tires exploding around him.
“The back of my shirt was all blackened and soaked with diesel fuel,” he said.
About 20 seconds after dragging the driver from the wreckage, Walker looked back and noticed that the cab had melted down.
“The guy had to come out of the truck,” he said. “That’s all there was to it.”
Crabtree suffered lacerations and was treated at Sutter Roseville Medical Center. He was arrested by the CHP on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
The septic tank fell off the truck when it rolled. It was not ruptured, nor did it catch fire, the CHP said.
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