“It would have been a triple fatality if he didn’t do what he did.”

Those words from State Highway Patrol Trooper J. M. Kinlaw, succinctly describe what would have happened if a St. Pauls man had not risked his own life to save a mother and her daughter from a burning car.

A crash claimed the life of the woman’s husband, but the heroics of Chuck Long saved her life and that of her two or three year-old daughter on the afternoon of November 3.

Mr. Long was aided in the rescue efforts by Jerry Hill, who lives near the crash site on Highway 20 West, near the Highway 87 intersection.

Both men responded to the crash scene, and, were able to literally tear the trapped and terrified passengers out mere seconds before the car, wedged underneath a tractor-trailer, exploded.

For his actions, Mr. Long’s name has been forwarded by the Highway Patrol to the North Carolina Crime Control and Public Safety director for consideration of recognition.

This story is best told in the words of Chuck Long.

“I was on Highway 87 traveling toward St. Pauls, about 100 yards behind the truck, when we turned onto Highway 20. I saw the car come out of Purdie Hall Road and run the stop sign and become crammed under the rear wheels of the Corney Transportation trailer at an angle, driver side in.

“I stopped and parked on the shoulder as quickly as I could. The truck drug the car about 400 feet down the road before he could get stopped. I jumped out and I could see that the car was already smoking. I took off running just as hard as I could, but by the time I got to it, the car had burst into flames and the rear portion was burning.

“I went to the passenger side, which was easier to get to because of the angle. I could see inside. I saw the little girl in the backseat in a childseat and the woman in the front passenger seat. The little girl was crying.

“Somehow I was able to jerk the door open and went in to her. It took me a second to get unbuckled because the seat had been cracked and because there was stuff all around, so it took me a while

“The car was filling up with smoke and the flames were licking up the driver’s side.

“I got the seatbelt undone and tried to get her out but her legs were pinned against the front seat.”

Jerry Hill came up and tried to raise the woman up to take the pressure off her and I put my shoulder in the back of the seat and heaved as hard as I could and jerked the little girl out. She had to come out of there and I had to get her out. I did and carried her to a fellow stranding there. Then I collapsed. I couldn’t breathe and Jerry came along and got my pocket knife to cut thew woman’s seatbelt. After a minute I got up to go help him, and as i recall, everything was hazy, he had the woman’s seatbelt cut and he took her to the side of the road. She was alive and stumbling but they made it.

“I went back into the car to see what i could do for the driver, but he was pinned. He wasn’t coming out of that car, he was already dead. But I didn’t know that at first, so I stayed with him 15 or 20 seconds, felt for a pulse, there wasn’t one and he wasn’t breathing.

“At that point the flames and smoke were getting really bad and coming on in on us. The car was full of smoke. After I realized that he was dead, I left the car and it wasn’t but a few seconds until the gas tank exploded and the car was totally engulfed in flames.

“People always say, in emergency situations, that you don’t think you just react and that’s what happened. There wasn’t any way that I was going to leave that little girl in there. So I did what I could do to help.”