INTERSTATE 80 PILEUP Driver, hotel, restaurant came to the aid of others

The hotel manager gave up her day off to help the crash victims.
WEST MIDDLESEX, Pa. -- Henry Cook is sort of a modern-day Paul Revere.
He didn't warn anyone that the British were coming, but he did warn drivers on Interstate 80 to slow down on Sunday morning, possibly preventing many cars from crashing into a multivehicle pileup.
Cook, 20, of New Albany, Ind., was on his way home for the holidays from Yale University, where he is a junior. He was in the pileup, near the front. He got out of his car immediately and started running back down the highway waving his arms to warn others of the danger ahead.
"It was spontaneous, kind of a natural thing to do," Cook said Monday. He also offered aid to other drivers. "I had a few blankets and extra jackets in the car and gave them to some people who needed them."
Around noon Monday, Cook was preparing to leave the Quality Inn in Shenango Township for the drive home to Indiana.
"One side of me wants to complain because I've been delayed," he said. "But on the other hand, they found my car 20 minutes ago. It's driveable and not smashed. I'm alive and not hurt. I guess I consider myself pretty lucky."
It's a trip home he won't soon forget.
"It's something that you think always happens to someone else, the kind of thing you always see on TV. I'll always remember it," he said.
Join the party
Stranded motorists were taken to the Quality Inn by the busloads on Sunday afternoon. Hotel manager Melody Glaser had the day off, but she ended up working a 10-hour day to get everyone settled in. She filled 68 rooms on Sunday night and gave each person half off the room rate.
Quality Inn employees had planned a staff Christmas party on Sunday, but they opened it up to share food and Christmas goodies with accident victims. In addition, local residents and businesses dropped off food.
"The people here have just been so nice," said Dorothy Rood, of Mystic, Conn., who was traveling to Michigan on Sunday with her three children and a large dog in a Ford Taurus station wagon.
Rood's car was barely scratched, and she was lucky. Out of the 68 drivers put up at the Quality Inn, only six were able to drive their vehicles away the next day.
Around midday Monday, the Jones family was piling into a rental car for the trip home to Detroit. Stephen Jones, his wife, Daphne Harris, their two children and a niece had been in New York visiting family over the weekend.
Jones left Pennsylvania without his car. It isn't driveable. It will need to be towed home, but Jones didn't like the price local companies are charging. His uncle from Toledo will come to get the car later in the week.
"A lot of people were very helpful, but I didn't like any of the rates that people were giving me so I'll come back on Saturday to get it," Jones said.
Running out of cars
Local rental car companies quickly ran out of cars on Monday as travelers tried to get on their way. Red Cross volunteer coordinator Rebecca Payne said vehicles being sent in from Youngstown and Pittsburgh airports.
Ed Brannen of Austintown was trying to decide whether to go to the Browns-Chargers game in Cleveland -- he had tickets -- when he was called about the crash.
Brannen, an American Red Cross volunteer, said the Red Cross fielded a variety of requests from stranded people, ranging from help trying to get cash wired to them to unexpected expenses (hotel and car rentals) to chargers for cell phones.
"There was a lot to think about once they got us all mobilized," Brannen said. "We made a lot of coffee and we even had figure out what kind of food to get -- hamburgers wouldn't do because they'd get cold." The local Subway provided sandwiches.
"It was like on 9/11 when that plane going to Hawaii was forced to land in Youngstown, Brannen said. "It's one of those things you don't expect to happen and people have a lot of different needs."