PORT ANGELES — Ordinary people became heroes amid the flames of Monday’s fatal car crash on U.S. Highway 101 east of Port Angeles.
One of the cars burst into flames moments after the crash, with Robert Norman, 39, of Port Angeles, and his two daughters — Emily, 3, and Allison, 9 months — trapped inside.
Phillip White, 40, of Port Orchard, broke one of the Ford Explorer’s windows with a rock and pulled the two girls from the back seat just before it exploded.
“It’s just something I had to do. There was no thinking involved,” White said, who is a reservist with the U.S. Air Force.
The girls’ mother, who was driving the Explorer, 27-year-old Ericka Larson, was thrown from the vehicle and pulled out of the vicinity of the flames by other witnesses, he said.
Phillip White was nearby at about 1 p.m. when, as the Washington State Patrol reports, Larson’s Explorer swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a Toyota 4Runner that carried a family of four from Beaverton, Ore.
White said another man tried to help him rescue the two Norman girls from the Explorer, but his clothes caught fire and he had to save himself.
Adrian Cushman of Sequim was reported by Clallam County Fire District 3 personnel to have helped White.
But it could not be confirmed Tuesday if Cushman was the same man who tried to help White.
