Trucker pulled from blaze clinging to life

Only seconds after police pulled an Ohio man from the wreckage of his burning semi tractor, an explosion of flame pierced the early Sunday morning air.
“They said people were hollering at us to tell us to get away from it,” Corbin Police Officer Robbie Hodge said of the heroic rescue effort. “There’s no way on earth we were gong to sit there and let him burn up.”
Hodge, Whitley County Sheriff’s Deputy Glenn Bunch and three students on Spring Break returning to Ohio worked frantically in the early morning to save 41-year-old Ernie Lawrence, of Deshler, Ohio, from the blaze. Deshler, while hauling a trailer for Hoops, Inc., fell asleep while traveling northbound on I-75 and ran off the road at about the 21-mile marker. His truck barreled headlong into dense woods near the highway and caught on fire.
As of press time Tuesday, Lawrence was still listed in critical condition at the University of Vanderbilt Medical Center’s burn trauma unit.
Hodge said Lawrence’s leg was pinned between the motor and the truck. The underneath of the truck was ablaze when police and volunteer firefighters arrived.
“We pulled and pulled on him and finally got him out,” Hodge said. “He looked bad. It was the worst thing I’d ever seen in my life … If we’d been there 30 seconds more, we’d probably be dead too.”
The accident was called into Whitley County’s 911 dispatch center at exactly 5:00 a.m. Though outside the Corbin city limits, Hodge said he got permission to respond to the crash because he was near I-75.
According to Kentucky Vehicle Enforcement Officer Greg Reams, who is investigating the accident, no one else was injured in the crash. He said Lawrence had severe burns on 80 percent of his body.
Hodge said Lawrence was conscious when he pulled him out of the truck and that he tried to speak to officers.
“I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say,” Hodge said. “I know he had to be in pain. It was awful. He was awake during the whole thing.”
Hodge said a fuel tank on the truck exploded just as rescue workers were putting Lawrence on a stretcher to be loaded into an ambulance.
Both Hodge and Bunch were taken to Baptist Regional Medical Center and treated for minor burns, cuts and smoke inhalation.
Traffic was slowed on I-75 until Sunday afternoon as investigators took measurements at the accident scene, and later cleared away the wreckage.