Sunday, February 19, 2006
The trucker rescued a couple but couldn't save their daughter.
CONOVER, Ohio (AP) -- Every time Dan Wallen drives Interstate 65 through Nashville, Tenn., he flashes back to the day that has sent painful memories spinning through his head but also has him up for an award as a hero.
The truck driver thinks about the husband and wife he and other motorists pulled from their burning car Sept. 9 -- and about the couple's only child, 17 years old, who didn't make it.
"It's been etched in my mind for a long time," said Wallen. "My wife, she's put up with me [through] the nightmares and everything else."
The 45-year-old Wallen, a truck driver for the Fort Smith, Ark.-based ABF Freight Systems Inc., lives with his wife, Lisa, and their children near this tiny western Ohio village. He is one of four nominees for Goodyear's North America Highway Hero Award, which will be presented March 23 at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.
The winner will receive a $10,000 U.S. savings bond.
"Danny -- his story is just amazing, how he went in there trying to free that girl and not being able to actually free her, but had burns from trying to reach in there and get her out," said Dave Wilkins of Goodyear.
What happened
About 10:45 p.m. that September night, a sport-utility vehicle traveling 70 to 75 mph rear-ended a car stopped on I-65 with a flat tire, according to a Nashville police report. The impact started a fire.
Wallen, who barely avoided rear-ending the SUV with his semitrailer, and another driver pulled Anthony Arnold, 59, of Thompson's Station, Tenn., from the burning car. Another man pulled a distraught Joy Arnold, 57, from the vehicle.
"She started screaming, 'My baby, my baby's in the car,"' Wallen recalled.
Wallen tried to pull Lynda Arnold, who was trapped in the back seat, out of the vehicle, but a police officer ordered him and another man away from the car. The vehicle's gas tank then exploded.
"We didn't get but 5 feet away and it blowed," Wallen said.
Wallen said he appreciates the award but downplayed his heroics.