Friday 25 December 2015
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‘They told me to give up’ Woman saved as 4WD burns BY ALANA MITCHELSON
SELFLESS: Adam Pearse with the hero’s medal he received for the courageous rescue of a woman in a smashed car about to explode in flames. Picture: Lindsay Kelley
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Bystanders watched motionless at a distance as Adam Pearse frantically rescued a woman trapped upside down in a mangled, upturned four-wheeldrive about to burst into flames. He was among four locals to receive bravery awards from the Royal Humane Society of Australasia at Melbourne’s Government House this month. Mr Pearse was driving along Geelong-Bacchus Marsh Road at Balliang East in October 2012 when the car immediately ahead veered across to the wrong side of the road and collided with a four-wheel-drive towing a boat. Travelling in the 4WD was a woman, her partner and her 18-year-old stepdaughter. The vehicle rolled three times before landing on its roof. The engine was already alight when Mr Pearse arrived first on the scene. He remembered instinctively instructing a nearby farmer to fill a bucket with water as he used a knife to cut the woman free of her seatbelt before dragging her to safety. Three years on, the Corio resident still cannot fathom how other witnesses failed to help. “We had minutes, minutes to help this woman,” Mr Pearse said. “People just stood there and did nothing while this lady was screaming. “I screamed out to them to help me get her out and some of them actually told me to get away from the car; that there was nothing I could do and that I should just wait for emergency services.” But Mr Pearse said the woman would have died if he had done nothing. “I almost got the fire out. “It must have been a matter of seconds, and I’m talking seconds, before the whole thing was ablaze. “You’re not prepared to see that sort of stuff. I felt like I couldn’t breathe because of all the smoke. Continued page 2
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