Honored for saving lives in a vehicle fire, David Ward is
haunted by the memory of the ones he couldn
’t save
David Ward still wakes up covered in sweat when he dreams of the fire that has changed his life forever.
The smell of burning flesh, intense heat from the flames and feelings of helplessness have been eternally branded into his memory.
For Ward, the nightmares are an unpleasant reminder of his attempt to save four teen-agers from a car engulfed in flames in the early morning hours of Aug. 12. Though Ward was able to pull two of the passengers from the inferno, he is still haunted that he couldn’t save the others that fateful morning.
Ward, who is a trucker for Bill’s trucking in San Jose, was headed home to Morgan Hill at about 12:15am, Aug. 12, heading south on I-680 in San Jose. As he approached McKee Road in the distance, he saw a car on fire in the middle of the highway. He had two fire extinguishers in the cab of his truck and jumped out to help extinguish the fire. As he started spraying the flames, he realized there were people still in the car and people in a crowd that had gathered were screaming, “You’ve got to get them out! You’ve got to get them out!”
He dropped the fire extinguisher, reached in through the flames and started to pull out one youth, a passenger in the front seat of the vehicle, through the window. The boy was tangled up in his seatbelt. As Ward pulled hard, the seatbelt came loose and he handed the boy to someone behind him. He ran to the other side of the car to pull out the driver, but the heat was so intense it was impossible to get within 10 feet of the car. He screamed for the driver to move, but by then, there was an explosion underneath the vehicle, which shot flames and heat from the undercarriage and sent bystanders running for cover. The driver was able to move upwards towards the sunroof, so he reached through the top of the vehicle and pulled him off the car. As he laid the boy on his back, Ward put out the fire that was still burning his pants and legs beneath him.
“His upper body was without clothing and when I moved him, his burnt flesh was stuck on my bare arms,” Ward recounted.
Ward spun around to get the backseat passenger out of the vehicle, but when he attempted to grab the boy’s shoulder, he said “it disintegrated right in my hand – like ash.”
“The heat was so intense, it sucked the air out of my lungs and I couldn’t breath,” said Ward. “I couldn’t get hold of enough of him to pull him from the car and he was showing no signs of life, so all I could do was stand back and watch as the flames continued to engulf him. I have never felt so helpless, completely unable to do anything more than just stand there and watch his motionless body disappear in flames.”
Still in shock, Ward returned to his truck and tried to regain his composure. He stayed by the side of one of the teen-agers, whose eyes were burned shut, until the ambulance arrived.
Only two of the four passengers survived that night. Matthew Kruger, 18, was ejected from the vehicle and spared from the hellish flames. Ward pulled Johnny Nguyen, 19, and Hoan Vu Vuong, 18, from the vehicle that night. Nguyen lived, but Vuong did not. Though he tried to rescue, 18-year-old Eric Tuggle the intense flames made it impossible to save him.
Now two months later, Ward said he hasn’t followed what happened to the men he saved, but he still remembers the horrors he saw. In mid-October, Ward was honored by the Morgan Hill City Council with local resident Michelle May for heroism. Though the recognition was nice, Ward said it does little to chase away the demons.
“Those images and the periodic smell of burning flesh will haunt me for a long time,” Ward said. “I continue to have sleepless nights because of the recurring dreams of people burning. There are no words to describe just how horrific it was to go through, or how real death is.”
In spite of all he’s experienced, Ward said he would do it again if meant saving another life.
“I would do it again in a heart beat.”
Rose Meily is the City Editor for the Morgan Hill Times. Reach her at 779-4106 ext. 201 or by e-mail at rm****@mo*************.com
