This made me feel pretty good...it's the story from the soldiers viewpoint, kind of long and not the easiest to read but worth the effort IMO.
Thruway rescue, near Syracuse: 'A great soldier' arrives to help save acaptain's life12/12/13Sgt.
John Tirinato wasn't surprised. He read the initial accounts of rescuers in the dramatic Thruway rescue of a New York National Guardcaptain, who'd been trapped in his pickup when he collided with a bridge.Those witnesses recalled how the pivotal moment in saving the captain's life was the arrival of an unnamed Guardsman who, in memory, seemed to stand6-foor-4 or 6-foot-5.
The newcomer was Raymond Presley, a truck driver and a sergeant first-class in the National Guard. He and Tirinato, who was also on the scene, served together in Afghanistan in the late 2000s. Physically, Terinato said,Presley is a normal-sized guy, who probably goes more like 5-foot-10.But his presence, Tirinato said, can be bigger than life."He's a great soldier," Tirinato said.
The rescue basically comes down to this: At about 8:20 a.m. Monday, a pickup driven by Capt. Timothy Neild, westbound on I-90, veered off the Thruway and hit the bridge. Several civilian motorists pulled over and tried to get Neid out of the vehicle, which had started to burn under the hood. The door was jammed. They kept pulling. They knew they had only a few minutes before the vehicle burst into flame.
Presley, of North Syracuse, arrived in the middle of all that. He was driving by in a tractor-trailer, on his way home after dropping off a load of furniture in New England. The run had gone perfectly, which almost never happens, Presley said. Typically, he would have encountered some small delay that would have brought him to that spot a little later.In this case, on this day, he was there at the right time."I don't know if it was fate or God or whatever deity you worship," Presleysaid. "All I know is that my night went smooth, and it put me there at that moment.
He saw the crumpled, smoking pickup, pressed against the bridge. He saw people working at the door and realized the driver had to be in trouble.Presley keeps a fire extinguisher in his truck. He pulled to the side of the road, grabbed the extinguisher and ran to the burning pickup.The window was shattered. Flames were already licking at the shoulders of the unconscious driver, whose head was pressed against the steering wheel.The guy was clearly military, dressed in uniform. Presley leaned in. He used the extinguisher to keep back the flames until it was empty, then reached down and read the name tag on the man's jacket.It was Capt. Timothy Neild. He and Presley serve in the same platoon of the National Guard's 27th Infantry Combat Team Brigade, at the Thompson Road Armory at Hancock Field."As soon as I saw who it was," Presley recalled, "I told (the otherrescuers), 'That's my captain. We've got to get him out.
'"Sherry Kline, a legal assistant who'd stopped to help, was shouting that they'd need to cut the seat belt in order to pull out Neild. Presley busy with the extinguisher and working on the door, told the others to grab a knife that he keeps in his pocket. One of the men - no one recalls exactly who - took the knife and used it to slash the seat belt.
Kevin Harrigan, an adoption lawyer and one of the rescuers, said the blade was so sharp it cut"like butter" through the tough material of the seat belt.
Tom Buckel, managing attorney of Legal Services of Central New York, was the first man on the scene. He said Presley brought a "commanding presence" to the rescue, and that he also provided deep military resolve: He kept telling the others they would find a way to get Neild out of the truck.
"The National Guard, we're no different than the police or firefighters oranyone else," Presley said. "He was one of ours. I can't put it any different way.
"The little group focused on trying to somehow open the door. They all grabbed onto it and started to pull. Presley said there was little talking or conversation; somehow, by instinct, they synchronized their timing. The flames inside the truck were getting worse, and Presley estimates they gave the door four or five strong yanks ...Finally, it door opened. But the space was only about 18 or 20 inches.
"It's time!" Presley shouted. "We need to get him out of here.
"A sea of arms reached in and grabbed onto Neild. The dashboard had been pressed forward, toward his body. He appeared to have fractures in his legs and feet. Flames had caught onto his jacket, near his neck. As the men pulled him out, Kline did her best to pat out the fire with her hands.The little group dragged him about 15 feet away from the pickup. Presley"wouldn't let go of his hand," Buckel said.
They had just set down Neild when Sgt. John Tirinato, another guardsman, ran toward them to help. Like Neild, he had been on his way to a drill at Hancock. He saw the wreck. He stopped his car. Only when he reached the scene by foot did he realize the victim was a captain in the same brigade.As Tirinato watched, flames exploded in the truck with such force that Buckel was thrown onto his face.
"I've seen a lot of accidents, but this was completely crazy," said Tirinato, who served in a war zone with Presley in Afghanistan, and spoke of his old friend with profound respect.Every rescuer deserves great credit, Tirinato said. To him, for Presley to get there when he did was a kind of miracle.
"Every second counted, every decision that was made. It was God's good grace that saved the captain (and) will allow his wife to have a Christmas with her husband," Tirinato said.Presly's arrival, Tirinato said, gave the rescuers the last push they needed to save the captain's life.Still, for a few seconds, they all remained in danger. Patrick Parker, one of the rescuers, shouted that everyone was too close to the truck. And that Parker was on the scene at all was another of those small, against-the-odds acts of fate:He lives in Liverpool and works in Auburn. Monday morning, lost in thought,he accidentally got onto an eastbound entrance ramp for Thruway. That sent him in the wrong direction, and meant he had to go to the next eastbound exit, and then turn around.While he was driving, he saw the crashed pickup. He pulled over. He was there when the other rescuers pulled Neild from the truck, and he had to time to show that the truck was about to blow.
Everyone came together to move Neild behind a concrete pillar. Tirinato jumped in to carefully support and stabilize Neild's neck and head, and the little group dragged the captain another 20 feet.A second explosion rocked the pickup, kicking metal into the air. The vehicle was consumed by flame.Neild was safe, even as the pickup burst into flames. Buckel estimates that happened "probably 30 seconds, 45 seconds after we got him out.
"As police and firefighters arrived at the scene, Presley did a quick appraisal of his captain's obvious wounds: A cut above his right eye,compound fractures of both feet, burns on his right arm. Neild was transported to Upstate University Hospital, where he remains in critical condition.Yet "the prognosis is very good," wrote Neild's father, Rick, in a note sentWednesday to The Post-Standard. Rick Neild said his son has a youngdaughter, and his wife Beth, a school teacher, is expecting another child.
The captain's injuries will demand a long recovery, Rick Neild wrote,"but the key word is recovery."If not for the efforts of every rescuer, wrote the father, "this fine youngman ... would have perished."Tirinato and Presley both went to the hospital to wait with Neild, knowing it would be a while before any family arrived. Afterward, remembering the sequence of events, Presley choked up for a moment and found it difficult to talk. Everyone at the scene could feel his passion, his resolve. The idea of risk, he said, never entered his mind:"All I knew was that he was a captain in my platoon, and that he had to come out of the truck. I did not want to explain to the rest of my platoon that I was there, and I had to let him go."
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