ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 25, 1996 TAG: 9612260008
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SERIES: whatever happened to ...? - a look back at 1996
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
He has a drawer full of awards and medals.
He received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, a special commendation from Gov. George Allen, a key to Roanoke from Mayor David Bowers, a state traffic safety award for valor and nearly a dozen other honors.
But Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Hall says one tribute is special.
It's a poem that praises him for rescuing a young couple from a burning car on Interstate 581.
Hall doesn't know who wrote it.
"I wished I knew because it probably means more to me than any of the awards," said Hall, a Marine recruiter.
Someone brought the poem into the Marine Corps Recruiting station on Peters Creek Road and left it for him without leaving any identification.
Three months after pulling Nicole Hicks, 19, and her boyfriend, Kevin Ballinger, 18, from the car moments before it was engulfed in flames, Hall said life has almost returned to normal for him.
Some people still recognize him when he's on the job, visiting a recruit orshopping at a mall and they'll ask him if he's the one who made the rescue.
"But it's pretty well back to business now," he said. "It has kind of faded now."
Hall, 38, said he felt honored by the public attention, but he's glad that it's subsided so he can concentrate on his job as a recruiter.
"I'd never been in the spotlight before with people wanting to honor me," he said. "Being a new recruiter here, all of the attention didn't help me because I was trying to spend time on my job and get off to a good start."
Hall made the dramatic rescue on Sept. 24 when he was driving downtown on I-581 to do police checks on potential Marine recruits and came up on a wreck that had happened moments earlier.
A small car had slammed sideways under the rear axle of a tractor-trailer. The truck had dragged the car more than 500 feet before both vehicles came to a halt in the southbound lane at Hershberger Road. Sparks had set both the car and the tractor-trailer on fire. The truck was loaded with retread rubber.
Hall stopped and pulled Hicks and Ballinger from the car before rescue workers arrived.
"I guess we both would have died if he hadn't been there," Hicks said, the day after the accident.
Hall left the scene after firefighters and lifesaving crews arrived. The couple and a state policeman who investigated the accident didn't learn his identity until later.
Ballinger was hospitalized with a torn liver, but Hicks escaped without serious injury.
Hall met the couple in October when Mayor David Bowers and Roanoke City Council honored him.
Hicks said recently that she and Ballinger have recovered fully from the wreck and are doing fine. They are still working as cashiers at the Kroger store on Williamson Road near Hollins.
"Most definitely at this time of the year, we appreciate what he did for us," Hicks said.
Hall, a Marine for 14 years, said he thought the worse when he came up on the wreck. He expected to find someone seriously injured or dead in the car.
"I had no idea I would rescue two young people from the vehicle, sir," he said. "If they had been hurt badly or dead, I probably wouldn't have gotten this much attention."
Hall doesn't think that his military background and training were neccesarily a factor in the rescue.
"It was from the heart - a gut instinct," he said. "Someone needed my help and I reacted."
If he had found someone bleeding badly or with other injuries that required emergency care, Hall said, his training might have been helpful.
Hall said he had never been faced with a similar situation previously when he drove up to the wreck and saw the car under the tractor-trailer.
"I had to make a choice and I chose to act," he said, adding that he never considered the danger once he decided to try to get Hicks and Ballinger out of the car.
Hall, who came to Roanoke as a Marine recruiter in late July from Camp Lejeune. N. C., said the wreck caused him to become known in the community quicker than he might have otherwise.
"When I got here, no one knew who Frank Hall was," he said. "Now they know that I'm a person who can be trusted - and who's concerned about the young people I'm recruiting."
Hall said he enjoys working in the Roanoke Valley.
"Here people look up to you and respect you because you're a Marine," he said. "It's a good feeling, sir."
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Cindy Pinkston. Staff Sgt. Frank Hall at the Marineby CNBCorps recruiting station on Peters Creek Road. color.