Article: Rescuer's knife saves woman

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Feb 7, 2000
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Here's an outstanding article from the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee highlighting how carrying a pocketknife can help save lives. :)

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Rescuer's knife saves woman in fiery wreck

By M.S. Enkoji -- Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 am PST Monday, January 31, 2005

As a boy, Jason Irby's father always urged his son to carry a pocketknife, a universally useful tool, he insisted.

Early Sunday morning, Jason Irby, now 31, used his pocketknife to free a woman trapped from a burning car wreck.

"Something just kicks in and you don't think about what you're doing," said Irby, hours after witnessing the single-car crash on Watt Avenue and Butano Drive near Country Club Plaza.

A gray 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass, driven by Brooke Jamerson, 22, of Sacramento, was heading north on Watt Avenue at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Passing Butano Drive, the car, traveling at possibly 90 mph, witnesses said, fishtailed off the road into a palm tree in front of the shopping center. The driver died in the accident. A passenger, Stephanie Marie Gravening, 23, of Sacramento, was taken to University of California, Davis, Medical Center with injuries from the crash and fire. She was in stable condition and is expected to survive.

Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District Capt. Steve Turner said Irby's decisive rescue probably saved the passenger. "She might have died if he hadn't come by," he said.

Irby recently opened a restaurant franchise, the Beach Hut Deli, on Watt Avenue. He and his wife had thrown a birthday party celebration there Saturday night, he said.

Afterward, the couple headed home to Roseville, driving north on Watt Avenue. Irby was so stunned when he saw a car flashing by him that he called his wife, who was in the car behind him.

A few seconds later, after the car slammed into the palm tree, Irby pulled into the shopping center parking lot and dashed to the wrecked car, already in flames. Because of the beach theme at his restaurant, Irby was dressed in shorts and flip-flops, he said.

The two women in the car were unconscious, oblivious to the flames licking around them, he said. Irby tried to yank open the passenger door, but the automatic seat-belt device kept the door from opening wide enough to get to the victim, he said.

He pulled out his pocketknife, sliced the seat belt and freed the door, he said. After pulling the passenger a safe distance from the car, he ran to the driver's side, but the wreckage had trapped her inside. As his wife - who is seven months pregnant with their second child - patted out flames on the passenger, Irby frantically worked to free Jamerson, but flames finally drove him back.

Firefighters were driving by on the way to a less pressing emergency when they spotted Irby at the burning car, Turner said.

They put out the fire, he said.

Even though firefighters had to use rescue equipment to finally recover the woman's body, Irby said he remains pained by his failure to save the driver, too.

"You go back and re-evaluate everything you did," he said.

Results of an autopsy performed Sunday indicate that even if the woman had been pulled from the wreck, she probably would have died from her injuries. The coroner listed blunt-force trauma as "the primary cause of death."

Irby, who loses pocketknives as fast as he can replace them, came home from his ordeal and made a phone call, he said.

He called his father, woke him up, and told him about his knife.
 
Great story, mnblade! You do find a lot of great articles!

I wonder if anyone else in the Blade Forums "family" has any of their own such rescue stories to tell? That would be a terrific thread to have and show-off to any of those people that seem to have knife phobias.

GeoThorn
 
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