Jan. 01--STOCKTON -- Fast-acting eyewitnesses pulled two young girls from a fire-engulfed Jeep Grand Cherokee after the vehicle's inexplicable crash into a towering metal power pole Tuesday afternoon.
Both girls, 10 and 8 and unidentified, were airlifted to the UC Davis Regional Burn Center in Sacramento. They were listed in critical condition late New Year's Eve, according to Stockton police Officer Joe Silva. The solo-car crash occurred at the intersection of Lincoln and Church streets at 5:30 p.m.
"The kids inside the car were screaming," said 46-year-old Efrain Chavez, who helped rescue them from the burning vehicle. "I pulled the girls out first, then the man."
The unidentified driver also had a deep gash on his right leg.
Chavez and Crystal Rojas were walking back from a shopping trip to the Dollar General store on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. They had been waiting at a railroad crossing on their two-mile walk home. As the train cleared, they heard a loud boom.
"I was scared for the girls' lives ... that the car was going to blow up," said Chavez, still shaking 15 minutes later and wiping blood from his hands. "I brought the girls across the street to the curb. The thing was on fire. It was ready to blow up. I was scared to go back for the man, but I did."
So did David Chiribel, 31, a resident of nearby Boggs Tract. He was driving by when he saw the Jeep, which had been traveling eastbound on Church Street, ram into the utility line.
"I saw him flying straight into the pole," said Chiribel, who quickly parked his small white pickup and helped with the rescue. "I thought he was trying to blow up his car. It was horrible."
For awhile, he too thought the gasoline inside the Jeep was going to ignite. Chiribel, Chavez and other, unidentified eyewitnesses helped extricate the driver.
Later, in his statement to police, Chiribel said one girl was in the back seat. She was pulled from the fiery car first. The other girl was in the front passenger seat. She was pulled out second and had dashboard pieces in her hair and face.
Chiribel told investigators he wasn't sure if any of the occupants were wearing seat belts.
The driver was unconscious initially, but revived while being yanked free of the vehicle. "I sat him on the curb," Chavez said. "Then he heard sirens and started to run away. The police nabbed him."
The car was completely engulfed in flames shortly after the three individuals were removed.
Both rescuers said they heard popping sounds coming from the vehicle a few seconds later.
Chavez sprinted the three blocks from the railroad tracks to the scene.
"I just knew I had to get them out," he said. "I am a man of faith. I heard bang, then saw the flames and heard the kids crying."
Both speed and alcohol were factors in the crash, Silva said..
Contact reporter Kevin Parrish at (209) 546-8264 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @KLPRecord.
Copyright 2014 - The Record, Stockton, Calif.
