Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Who says there's never a cop around when you need one? Certainly not Marie Brown.
A Roanoke officer rescued the 68-year-old woman from her burning car Wednesday morning.
"If it wouldn't have been for him, I wouldn't be here today," she said Thursday, seated in her home on Clifton Avenue Northwest. "You'd be writing about a woman who burned up in a car. ... The good Lord must have sent him."
About 9:30 a.m., Brown was trying to get to the doctor's office. A stroke some years ago crippled her right leg, and doctors have become a weekly part of her life.
Using her walker, Brown made it just fine to her station wagon parked under her carport.
"I got into the car and started it up, and it was running real good," Brown recalled. "Then the car cut off. I said maybe it's flooded. Then it started smoking. There was so much smoke, I said, `Good day.' Then I looked in the mirror, and the car began filling up with smoke. Then I seen the law coming up the road."
Officer Larry Martin, who has patrolled Roanoke's streets for 28 years, wouldn't talk about the incident.
But according to a police report, he was cruising his beat when he saw Brown's car on fire. Brown was trying to escape; her right foot was caught in the doorjamb.
By the time Martin pulled her from the flames and smoke, the heat had popped the car windows and singed the paint off the metal. The fire engulfed the car and burned the carport.
Firefighters believe the engine backfired, igniting the gasoline.
Brown sat inside her house, appearing undaunted from her experience. She had a good cry after the rescue, she said. And she has already rescheduled her doctor's appointment.
There's only one matter left at hand, she said: "I got to get me another car."
by CNB