Two victims; three heroes.

The night of November 17 saw a terrible accident occur in the village of Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, New York. A tanker truck driven by Henry Tulloch carrying 4,700 gallons of gasoline collided with a car driven by Stacy Morales-Bradley. A violent explosion occurred, a fireball erupted, and both drivers were trapped inside their burning vehicles. Morales-Bradley's flaming car had rolled down an embankment and overturned. Briarcliff Manor High School senior Dan Marcel ran down the slope to help, but he could not break the car's window.

Fortunately, two other men who arrived at the scene were more successful in rescuing the endangered drivers. Yanni Papanicolaou was driving past the accident site when a man ran up to his car and told him to call 911 on his cell phone. But Papanicolaou did much more. Holding onto a tree limb for support, he lowered himself down the steep slope to Stacy's car. Almost miraculously, he found a rock at his feet, smashed in the car's window, and pulled out the woman, whose hair and clothes were on fire. Yanni then smothered the flames.

Meanwhile, Henry Tulloch's truck was also on fire, and he was trapped in the cab. A second heroic passerby, Joshua Rattner, helped pull Tulloch away from his truck and rolled him on the ground to put out the flames on his back. He also called the driver's wife on a cell phone, assuring her that Tulloch would be okay.

The two heroes were honored at the November 22 meeting of the Westchester County Board of Legislators. At that meeting Briarcliff Manor Fire Chief William Ventura said: "These two people were truly heroes.... I don't use the term lightly. The heat was so intense. If they hadn't done what they did, we would have two deaths on our hands."