Two soldiers honored for car crash aid - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Two soldiers honored for car crash aid

Staff Sgt. Cameron Grimone and his wife were giving a friend visiting on leave, 1st Lt. Joseph Fontana, a scenic tour of sunny Honolulu when a terrible crash happened before their eyes.

An old Toyota pickup truck raced by them on the H-1 Freeway, slammed into an embankment and flipped three times. The truck was on its side and on fire, the driver’s legs were pinned beneath the cab, and his head was bleeding heavily.

What Grimone and Fontana did next earned them the Honolulu Police Department’s highest medal for bravery, the Civilian Medal of Valor. Grimone received the award at an Aug. 7 ceremony, though Fontana had returned from Iraq the day before and missed the ceremony.

The two childhood buddies from Saranac Lake, N.Y., said they did not do anything extraordinary. As soldiers, they were trained to help, and that’s what they did.

“It happened so close to us, you just had to slam on the brakes and help,” Grimone said.

“I didn’t think, and he didn’t think either,” said Fontana, of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. “You see it, react to it and just do it.”

On May 25, Fontana, a second platoon leader with the 1st Battalion, 14th Cavalry, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, was on a 14-day leave. Grimone, then a recovery supervisor with the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, was showing Fontana around.

Fontana and Grimone, friends since they were 3 years old, were on their way back from snorkeling when the truck flipped near their car.

“He passed us going considerably fast on the left side,” Grimone said. “I said, ‘That doesn’t look safe, the guy’s driving crazy,’ and 10 seconds later, the guy just lost control and flew into the embankment on the right side of the road.”

Without thinking, Grimone pulled over, his wife called 911, and he and Fontana raced to the flipped and burning truck. The truck’s passenger-side window lay atop of the driver’s legs at the knees. A female passenger had also been ejected from the truck.

“We came up on the guy, and I said to Joe, ‘We’ve got to get him out of there,’ because the thing was already engulfed in flames,” Grimone said. “He was still alive, still conscious, still breathing, moaning.’”

“The guy had to be moved because the truck could go at any time,” Fontana said. “You can either save yourself or do what you can. We just did what we could.”

As the flames crept toward the cab, Grimone grabbed the driver’s legs and the two soldiers rocked the truck off the ground just enough to free the driver.

The injured man weighed about 300 pounds, and to get him clear of the fire, Grimone straddled his legs and lifted him by his shirt while Fontana lifted him by his shoulders. Soon, the truck was engulfed.

“We kept moving him, shimmying him, because we were worried the whole thing was going to pop,” Grimone said.

Grimone and Fontana tried to stanch the flow of blood from the man’s head wound with a towel. They monitored his weakening pulse and kept his airway open. They also tried to calm the female passenger, who had no visible injuries but appeared to be going into shock.

“I don’t have any American Red Cross training, but it was just kind of, check for responsiveness, what the Army teaches you,” Grimone said. “You don’t really think; it just happens by memory.”

The driver’s head injury was bad, and the two men stayed close as the man’s pulse and breathing grew fainter and eventually stopped — just as emergency crews arrived, Fontana said.

“There wasn’t much we could do, but we did what we could, and he died right there,” Fontana said. “It was pretty sad, and the worst was the guy’s brother showed up just as they were putting him in the ambulance, asking, ‘Is he OK?’ And I could not answer him.”

Police and firefighters later confirmed to them that the man had died. The woman was taken to an intensive care unit.

Days later, Grimone was on leave when a Honolulu police official called him to say the friends had been nominated for the award.

“I’m very honored, but I don’t feel it was necessary. I was just trying to help someone,” Grimone said. “I wish it never happened. I wish the gentleman was still alive. Anybody in the same situation, I just hope that they would help.”

For Fontana, the experience underscored life’s uncertainty.

“You could be in Iraq, you can be doing anything, hanging with your wife, and you never know when it’s going to hit you. You never know when it’s going to be your time,” he said. “You just have to do what you can, and when you see an opportunity to help or make a difference, you just go for it.”

He called the award “too much.”

“There are a lot of other soldiers, a lot of civilians who do so much more,” Fontana said. “I just did a small thing and was recognized for it.”