Geneva teens praised for rescuing woman from fiery crash
Would you run toward a burning car, without hesitation, to help someone?
Two Geneva teenagers did Aug. 11, thanks in part to their training as Lincolnshire Police Department Law Enforcement Explorers.
"You stand up there as if you are seasoned veterans. To me it is incredible," Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns said after they told their story at a city council meeting last week, where they were declared "Hometown Heroes."
What happened
Kyle O'Malley and John Schneider were in uniform, returning home from a stint directing pedestrians and traffic at an art fair in Lincolnshire. They were westbound on the Reagan Memorial Tollway near western Naperville.
"We see two large fireballs in the eastbound lane," O'Malley said. Two cars were on fire.
They parked, ran, vaulted the median. A woman on the passenger side of one vehicle was unconscious. Flames were licking the door and the pavement around the vehicle.
Schneider, trying to break the windshield, heard the car's tires pop from the heat.
While spectators were asking if anyone had a fire extinguisher, Schneider figured a truck driver would, and ran over to one. He then doused enough of the fire to enable people to get close to the car. O'Malley and another man wrestled the damaged door open, and Schneider reached in from the other side to cut the woman's seat belt and free one of her legs.
The group put her in a pickup truck bed, where she regained consciousness.
"I turn around and the car inside and out was on fire," Schneider said.
As a nurse stayed with the woman, the duo then checked the passengers in a third car.
The shock
The shock of what they had done hit them on the way home.
"Kyle said 'I'm not sure we should be driving,'" Schneider said, so they stopped at a gasoline station, to catch their breath.
Schneider called his dad (an Illinois State Police captain). But his mom, not knowing any of this, had been trying to reach him by text and calls, and was getting exasperated. Finally, he texted back: "Open the garage door and get 2 glasses of ice water ready. Be home in 2 min."
O'Malley's first words to his parents: "Boy, do we have a story."
Schneider is a senior at Geneva High School. O'Malley is starting his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
O'Malley wants to become an Illinois State Police trooper. Schneider says maybe a police officer, a welder or member of the military.
And get this: It's not the first time O'Malley's been involved in a rescue. He was one of three post members, and their adviser, who were first on the scene of a motorcycle crash on a mountainside highway in Arizona in 2016, while they were en route to a national conference. As others tended to the injured motorcyclist, Schneider donned a reflective vest and directed traffic.
This time, because they were in uniform, bystanders thought they were real police. According to Schneider, one of the other good Samaritans told him "When we saw you guys run out of your car, we said 'The troopers are here - yay!' (pause) 'Nope, Explorers.
'At least we got something.'"