PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania Turnpike employee is being hailed a hero after he pulled someone out of a car that crashed into a toll booth and caught fire.
“It was an interesting morning,” Eric Bruno, who has worked for the Turnpike’s fare collections for 32 years, said.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike said Bruno showed up 45 minutes early to his shift at the Pittsburgh Interchange on Jan. 8. Around 15 minutes later, he was sweeping up salt outside the collection building when he suddenly heard a “horrific” crashing and grinding noise.
The Turnpike said two cars had crashed and one of them was on fire with the driver still inside. Bruno ran to the car to help the driver when he realized he wasn’t escaping and the blaze was getting worse.
“He was leaning on the car screaming, ‘I broke my hip, help me!’” Bruno said “So, I got under his shoulder so he could hop on his good leg.”
They got “three or four hops” down the lane before Bruno said the pain and shock the driver was feeling caused him to collapse.
“I kept telling the guy, ‘Dude, you got to get up, the car is going to explode, and we got to get away from here,’” Bruno said. “All he kept saying was, ‘Help me.’”
A passerby came over to assist the driver, who was taken to safety.
“Nothing really hit me until I was talking to a trooper who responded on scene, and he said to me ‘Thank you… you saved this man’s life,” Bruno said. “And it never hit me until he said it that this guy would have probably burned up if it wasn’t for me and that customer helping him out of the car.”
Bruno said he’s glad that both drivers escaped in the nick of time.
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