April 12--The car was burning as Tim Elmer and the others dashed up the hill.
A man and two children were trapped in the 1993 Oldsmobile, which had veered off I-70 on the West Side and caught fire after barreling up a brushy hillside and slamming into a concrete overpass.
Anthony Pyles, 33, and his two children, 8-year-old Anthony and 10-year-old Brianna, were hurt and frightened after the accident on Sunday afternoon. Three of the car's four doors wouldn't open. Brianna, in the back seat, tried the fourth. It opened slightly but was blocked by brush.
It would be up to strangers to free Pyles and his children with just moments to spare.
"That was a life-and-death situation out there," said Elmer, a retired Columbus firefighter.
Pyles, of Franklin Township, later told police officers and bystanders that he struck something in the road just before the freeway merges with I-670 and lost control.It was about 3:45 p.m., and Elmer was headed home to Hilliard with his wife and two children after a soccer game in Pickerington. He was in the left lane on I-70 when he first saw Pyles' car.
Brian Long, 26, was a few cars behind Pyles.
"The car just shot off into the embankment," he said. The Oldsmobile's front end started to smoke after the car struck the concrete bridge wall.
Long and other drivers pulled over. He called 911 and followed his stepfather, Kevin Crabtree, up the hill.
"There's a terrible accident," one female caller told a 911 dispatcher. "There's children in the back seat."
"The whole front of the car is smashed and on fire," another caller said.
Witnesses said four or five people rushed to the car. Elmer was looking for something to break a window when he saw that Brianna's door was ajar.
The group forced it open and pulled the children out first, then Pyles. Flames had breached the car's firewall at that point, Elmer said.
The group carried Pyles and his son down the hillside. Brianna wasn't as badly hurt and walked on her own.
"By the time we got them halfway down the hill, that car was fully in flames," Elmer said.
Pyles was treated at Mount Carmel West hospital and released. The children were taken to Nationwide Children's Hospital.
The children's mother, Constance Carpenter, said yesterday that Brianna returned to school on Wednesday. Anthony, who goes by "Herbie," was released from the hospital on Wednesday. He needed ankle surgery and likely will miss school next week, but overall he's doing fine, she said.
"We just feel so blessed that people stopped."
Elmer, 45, retired in 2007 after injuries made daily firefighting impossible.
"It all takes a toll on you," he said.He now supervises construction jobs for the Ohio prisons system.
Elmer said he was happy to have had company on the hillside, even though he doesn't know who some of his fellow rescuers were.
"If people wouldn't have got out and helped, I don't foresee that there'd be three people still alive," he said.
Copyright 2013 - The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio
