April 21, 1971

Two women rescued in fiery crash on SR 37

       "The way it looked nobody was alive," remarked Arthur Burkes of rural Greenwood who pulled two Indianapolis women to safety from a crushed automobile which erupted into flames along State Road 37 Wednesday morning.  The 39-year-old Burkes was driving to his home located a half-mile south of Smith Valley Road on State Road 37 shortly after 8:30 a.m. when he signaled to turn into his driveway.  Patricia Langan, 42, Indianapolis, apparently did not see Burkes' turn signal in time to slow down.  The Indianapolis woman lost control of her car, and the auto skidded and flipped into a ditch along the west side of State Road 37.  Burkes immediately pulled into his driveway and ran to see if anyone had been injured.  His first thought was that nobody could have survived because the top of the white-and-blue Pontiac was so badly crushed there would be no escape through the car's windows.  Burkes forced the jammed door on the passenger's side open and pulled a passenger, Mary Lou Beasley, Indianapolis, to safety.  "I didn't see the other woman (the driver)," said Burkes.  "The woman I pulled out first said she was still in the car.  She (the driver) couldn't get her seat belt undone, so I snapped it loose for here and pulled her out too."  Shortly after Burkes pulled the two women from the car, flames shot from under the hood, blocking efforts of an unidentified Greenwood auto mechanic from disconnecting the battery cable to prevent a fire.  "Both women seemed to be all right," Burkes recalled.  "But the driver seemed a little shaky and she broke down and cried when the fire started."  Burkes, who was driving home from the night shift at RCA in Indianapolis, said he signaled to turn into his driveway and he "heard a screech behind him and looked up and saw a car heading toward him sideways and then it started going end over end."  In the midst of near tragedy, Burkes crawled into the smashed 1969 Pontiac and retrieved the driver's purse before the car burst into flames.  Two units from the White River Township Fire Department arrived on the scene to contain the blaze which could have turned into a fiery trap for two Indianapolis women.  Neither Patricia Langan nor her Indianapolis companion were seriously injured.  The burned and wrecked 1969 Pontiac was listed as a total loss.  (Courtesy of the Daily Journal)

               
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