{"id":13632,"date":"2016-01-18T19:29:49","date_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/?p=13632"},"modified":"2016-01-18T19:29:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-18T19:29:49","slug":"retired-firefighter-rescues-family-from-overturned-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/?p=13632","title":{"rendered":"Retired firefighter rescues family from overturned car"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read the full report HERE\u203a\u203a<\/a><\/p>\n

His first reaction wasn\u2019t to call the police.<\/p>\n

Instinct took over.<\/p>\n

Retired Lincoln firefighter Mark Munger was on his way back to Lincoln from visiting his daughter in Des Moines on Friday. He had just stopped for gasoline and gotten back onto Interstate 80 on an unusually windy day.<\/p>\n

The trailer\u00a0hitched to a vehicle in front of him started to teeter. In a matter of seconds, the car swung dramatically to the left, and tumbled in seemingly endless loops until it plopped upside down on the median.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the most violent thing I\u2019ve seen in my life \u2014 and I\u2019ve seen a lot of things,\u201d Munger said.<\/p>\n

While others called police, Munger could only think that he needed to get to the vehicle as fast as he could and help in any way he could.<\/p>\n

Munger dodged debris \u2014 from warped, body-size pieces of what used to be the trailer\u2019s side paneling to shattered glass \u2014 until he was finally able to pull his car onto the shoulder.<\/p>\n

Then, he got out and ran.<\/p>\n

Sprinting down the wrong way of the interstate to the wreckage 50 yards away, he realized that potentially more dangerous than the actual wreck could be oncoming traffic crashing into the scene. As he ran, he waved both arms in the air frantically, directing traffic out of the way.<\/p>\n

He spent 35 years of his life doing this kind of thing. He might have retired six years ago, but all of his quick response instincts came back easily.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like riding a bicycle,\u201d Munger said. \u201cIf you\u2019re in the emergency services as a professional I don\u2019t think you forget. To help people is just part of my psyche, my blood, my DNA. There\u2019s no way that I could have not stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he got closer to the wreckage, Munger scanned the ground for bodies that might have flown out. He didn\u2019t see any and climbed to the driver\u2019s side, got on his stomach in the snow and peered in the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could not believe people were still in the vehicle,\u201d Munger said. \u201cI thought I was running back to a car full of dead people.\u201d<\/p>\n

By then, more vehicles had pulled over. Munger could hear people yelling \u201cAre they alive?\u201d<\/p>\n

Munger was able to pry the smashed car doors open and help the two children in the back get out. Next was their mom.<\/p>\n

Much to Munger\u2019s surprise, no one suffered any major injuries \u2014 just a few cuts and bruises.<\/p>\n

Munger fashioned a sling out of his T-shirt for one of the girls who had a broken arm. Munger and the girls and their mom waited in another woman\u2019s car to avoid the bitter cold.<\/p>\n

To \u201ccalm the situation down,\u201d Munger told them that as a firefighter he had seen things like this uncountable times.<\/p>\n

Even though he had assisted people at all kinds of accidents in the past, this one in particular was one Munger hadn\u2019t ever experienced.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was so different in the fact that I watched it all unfold right before my eyes rather than pulling up minutes after,\u201d he said. \u201cSo to watch the crash in front of you is disconcerting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/p><\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Read the full report HERE\u203a\u203a His first reaction wasn\u2019t to call the police. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13634,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13632\/revisions\/13634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/georgiaarsoncontrol.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}