Many "guardian angels".

On the morning of March 12, a violent, head-on automobile crash in West Manhelm Township, Pennsylvania, trapped three people in a burning car. A large number of individuals arrived at the scene before professional rescue crews arrived, and immediately set out to help the victims.

The flaming vehicle was driven by 68-year-old Christopher DeVier. His close friend, 66-year-old Sandra Crouse, was the front-seat passenger, and his grand daughter, eight-year-old Amber Grider, sat in the rear seat.

Two of the first people to come across the accident scene were off-duty Baltimore City Police Officer Stephen Sistek and his wife, Barbara. After one man broke the passenger seat window with a crowbar, Sistek used a pocket knife to cut the seat belt holding Crouse. Others had already rescued young Amber from the rear passenger seat.

Suddenly, the trapped Mr. DeVier screamed that fire from the car's engine had started burning his legs. To save DeVier, others who had come to help formed a bucket brigade to douse the flames. In an interview in the Hanover Evening Sun, Mrs. Sistek recalled: "One man threw a jacket saturated with water over his head.... It was horrific."

Meanwhile, other heroic individuals were still joining in the rescue. One man ran to the nearby home of retired fire chief Bill Shoemaker. The former firefighter came running with a fire extinguisher and trained it on the flames. As Shoemaker told the Evening Sun: "It kept flaring up, and I kept knocking it down. I told the people to keep bringing the water and asked for another fire extinguisher. I didn't have enough to put it out, but 1 had enough to keep him from burning alive."

Two truck drivers arrived with fire extinguishers and joined the others in controlling the fire until members of the Pleasant Hill Fire Company arrived. The firefighters extinguished the fire for good and used hydraulic tools to free Mr. DeVier.

The driver of the other vehicle, 61-year-old Ronald E. Garrison, died of injuries sustained in the crash. He had earlier downplayed his own injuries and told the first rescuers to help the occupants of the DeVier car, all of whom survived thanks to the many heroes. As Mrs. Sistek summed up the incident: "There were many, many guardian angels there that day."