Hay bales fell off a truck ahead of Shannon M. Phelps, and the hay stuck under her car caught fire.
Source: The Republican (Springfield, MA)
Author: NANCY H. GONTER; [email protected]
GOSHEN, MA – When 21-year-old Shannon M. Phelps saw the man in the pickup truck flashing his overhead lights at her in the dark on Dec. 2, she didn’t know why he was trying to get her attention as she drove on a remote section of Route 9.
“That’s when we saw the smoke behind us,” said Phelps of Springfield, a University of Massachusetts nursing major who was on the way to a clinical practice in Pittsfield.
As soon as she stopped her car, the man came up and helped her and fellow student Lena H. Padilla get out of the car, which was quickly consumed by flames.
“When he opened my door, I could see the flames from under my car coming up. He told both of us to get out of the car. We both knew we had to get out without thinking. We didn’t grab anything,” Phelps said.
The freak set of circumstances that led to the fire, and the isolation of the location added to the chaos of the scene, and Phelps never got the name of the man who she believes saved her life. Now, she’s hoping to learn his identity so she can thank him.
“If he hadn’t stopped us, we would have kept driving. We didn’t see any smoke. We smelling nothing. We had no idea anything was wrong,” Phelps said.
“I don’t know if we would have been able to get out of the car if we had waited to stop,” she said.
Phelps, who will graduate in May and who hopes to become a registered nurse, was driving on Route 9 shortly after 6 a.m., following a pickup truck loaded with hay bales with a semi-truck in between. Some bales fell off the pickup and were crushed by the semi, so when Phelps drove over it, the hay got pulled up underneath her 1995 Honda Accord.
“I tried to avoid it, but it was on both sides of the road. I had no idea there was any hay stuck under my car,” she said.
She drove more than three miles before the white pickup truck with lettering on it and white lights on top of it got her to stop. It was driven by a white male in his late 20s or early 30s with brown hair. He was about 5 feet, 7 inches tall.
Not only did he help the two women out of the car, but he let Phelps use his cellular telephone to call the Fire Department and her parents. But as the fire consumed the car and Phelps waited for the Fire Department, the man left.
Phelps’ mother, Christine Phelps, has encouraged her to find the man.
“She thinks he deserves some kind of good Samaritan award. He saved both our lives,” she said.