High school teacher, Rochester resident rescues woman from burning car

WAREHAM — A Rochester man climbed onto a burning SUV and pulled a woman to safety after the car crashed in the woods and flipped on its side late afternoon on Wednesday, June 23 on Great Neck Road in Wareham. 

Craig Berriault, a science teacher at Wareham High School and a Rochester resident, safely removed a woman from the burning car before police officers arrived at the scene. Police Lt. Bryan Whalen described Berriault as a "good Samaritan."

Berriault said he was mowing a lawn on the nearby Maritime Drive when he saw a woman parked on the side of the road, looking stressed while on the phone with her car running and its door open. He could sense that something was happening, so he decided to go check it out. 

Once he got to the scene, he saw an SUV flipped over with its driver's side up and its engine ablaze. He asked if anyone had exited the car and a group of bystanders told him no. So, Berriault jumped into action and tried to climb onto the side of the car. 

"I never realized how high an SUV would be," he said.

After his first attempt to climb the vehicle failed, Berriault tried again. He stepped on the exhaust system, trying to make sure he didn't burn himself, grabbed the car's rear tire and got on top of the car.

When he looked inside, Berriault saw all the airbags deployed. He couldn't see inside the car. 

Then he heard a cough.

Berriault started yanking on the car's doors, but found that the front door on the driver's side of the car was locked. He then tried the back door on the same side, which was unlocked. He pulled open the door to a puff of smoke coming out of the SUV. 

He looked down into the car.

"Who's in there? Anybody in there?" Berriault said he yelled.

He found an older woman who was "down in the hole of the front passenger's seat." The woman told him she took her seatbelt off and fell to the passenger's side of the car.  

Trying to keep the door open, Berriault said he hung his legs in the door and reached toward the woman who was trapped inside the car. He then pulled her toward the back seat of the car, grabbed her "like a bear hug," pulled her onto his shoulder and pushed her out onto the top of the side of the car.

"By that time, I kind of had her out and people were very relieved that she was out and she was the only one in the car," Berriault said.

He then moved the woman so her legs were hanging off of the vehicle and passed her down to other intervening bystanders to get her away from the car. 

"She was very grateful, which, you know, it was good that we were all able to get her out," Berriault said.

The woman was in good spirits and was able to stand on her own, according to Berriault. It is unclear whether the woman was transported to the hospital after the crash. And other than some cuts and scrapes of his own, Berriault said he was fine. 

"I'd like to think that if the roles were reversed people would be helping pull me out," he said. "I'm just glad I was able to help."

Berriault said he was surprised no one else climbed up onto the vehicle to help, but felt that the fire may have deterred people from responding. He attributed his decision to climb the burning SUV to the MythBusters episodes he watches with his seven-year-old son. 

"It takes a lot in the perfect scenario" for a car to explode, Berriault said, so it wasn't a risk for him to get involved. He said that the greater risk would be someone in the car asphyxiating because of the smoke and fumes inside. 

"I'm just glad that I was able to be there at the right time," Berriault said.

First responders arrived on the scene soon after he took the woman out of the car, according to Berriault, who then went on with his day.

"I've got to go back to mowing lawns," Berriault, who operates a landscaping company, said he told the responders. "I've got so many lawns to do."