FORT WAYNE – All day long, Ryan Shatzer deals with fire and the possibility of an explosion.
“I torch. I cut stuff. I weld,” said the 33-year-old who works at Hoosier Metal, a recycling operation. “Sometimes we cut open tanks and things that people bring in that are flammable but weren’t supposed to be. They’ll burst into flame.”
So on Friday night, when Shatzer ran up to a burning sport utility vehicle and pulled out the driver who had just crashed, the proximity to fire was not a big deal to him.
“I’m used to it,” he said.
Despite his nonchalance, Shatzer’s actions likely saved the driver’s life, according to Fort Wayne police.
Shatzer agrees.
“Nobody else was right there. Nobody was going to be here in time,” he said. “If we had been waiting for the police to come or something, it might have been too late.”
Shatzer lives in a first-floor apartment on the northeast corner of Creighton Avenue and Clinton Street. He was at home Friday night getting ready for bed when he heard a loud bang before 9:30 p.m. Worried that someone had hit his car parked on the street, he bolted out the door.
His car was fine, but there was a Pontiac Aztek in flames on the southeast corner of the intersection. He ran across Creighton in his bare feet, and when he reached the Aztek, the vehicle’s interior was on fire.
“The dash and everything on the inside was already pouring black smoke,” he said.
There were licks of flame in different spots on the outside of the vehicle, and the driver’s right leg, arm and side were on fire.
The driver’s door was jammed, so Shatzer broke out some glass in the driver’s already busted window and tried to open the door using the inside handle. When that didn’t work, he leaned into the vehicle and forced the door open.
Shatzer pulled the driver away from the vehicle and, with help from another man, put out the flames on him. “We patted him maybe four times, and he was out,” Shatzer said.
Shatzer and others carried the driver about 30 feet from the burning Aztek and tended to him until paramedics arrived.
“Within two minutes after I got him out, it was a roaring ball of fire,” Shatzer said of the SUV.
The vehicle was sitting upright in a grassy area near the street. The flames were 20 to 30 feet into the air, he said.
Medics took the driver, Chris A. Plew, 49, of New Haven to a hospital. He was in critical but stable condition Saturday, according to police.
Through an investigation, police found that the Aztek had been speeding south on Clinton, jumped a curb and crashed into a concrete barrier next to Shatzer’s apartment house. The crash sent the SUV airborne across Creighton, landing on the southeast corner of the intersection, police said.
Before the fiery crash at Clinton and Creighton, police said, the SUV may have struck a vehicle about 10 blocks north, near Clinton’s intersection with Murray Street.
Police believe speed and, to a lesser extent, wintry weather conditions were factors.
They said other possible factors are under investigation.
During the rescue, Shatzer inhaled a bit of smoke but was otherwise OK. “Just coughed a couple times, and it was fine,” he said Saturday afternoon.
Standing in his doorway that looks onto the crash scene, Shatzer reflected on what he did Friday night.
“This is one of the defining moments of my life,” he said. “It’s like a personal win. You know, that you did something that was good and right.”
