Trending
MUNCY -- While on his way to work at Kellogg Company, 37-year-old Jeremy Hanaway first saw smoke spewing out from under the bridge over Muncy Creek as he approached the scene of Friday night's fiery crash on John Brady Drive.
"I could hear a child crying," Hanaway said during brief a interview this week on the telephone.
"It was a crazy situation, something had to be done," he said.
There was no time to waste.
He pulled over to the side of the road, jumped over a guardrail and made his way down an embankment, where flames in a pickup truck's engine compartment were making their way to the passenger compartment.
Hanaway then saw a child in a safety seat in the back and quickly lifted him out of the seat through an open window.
"He was covered in blood," the Bloomsburg area resident said of the boy, who he believed was about age 4. He also saw a man lying across part of the front seat.
Hanaway carried the boy up the embankment and got him out of danger. "I told him his was going to be OK," he said.
"I then ran back down to the truck. The flames were now just inches from the man's hands. He didn't move. I think he was doing like labored breathing," Hanaway said.
The driver's upper body was close to the passenger door, but "I couldn't open that because it was all smashed. So I went around to the driver's door. I just grabbed him by his ankles and dragged him out of the truck," Hanaway said.
The crash, about a mile north of the borough, occurred at 6:40 p.m.
Within minutes after Hanaway's heroic actions, paramedics and volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene and began providing emergency care.
The truck and an SUV crashed on the bridge, sending the truck airborne, according to Muncy Area fire officials. The truck landed upright on the ground under the bridge and caught fire, officials said. Both the man and the child were flown to Geisinger Medical Center, Danville, and the male driver of the other vehicle was taken to UPMC Williamsport.
State police were leading the investigation. As of Monday night, no details about the crash -- including the drivers' identities -- had been released.