Amy L. Edwards
Orlando Sentinel

LAKELAND, Fla. — Lt. Colin Fredericks and his Polk County fire crew were on a routine accident call on Interstate 4 when they first heard the banging and grinding of metal on metal.

They could see nothing. But they could hear the screams and feel the fire.

The fog and smoke from a nearby brush fire made the visibility so bad early Wednesday that crew members walked alongside their engine as it crawled up I-4 toward the sounds of disaster. Soon, they heard the loud popping of melting tires, the cries for help.

Fredericks said his initial priority was to try to put out the fire.

"I realized we weren't going to stop it. It was too late," he said. "And then I realized that we had people trapped in cars behind the vehicles on fire."

His crew quickly grabbed their Jaws of Life and cut one man out of his pickup, which was underneath a tractor-trailer.

Then, the quick-thinking group found a dolly in the wreckage. They put the Jaws of Life -- and several hundred pounds of additional rescue equipment -- on the dolly and got to work.

"We only had three guys, and we had 70 cars. So we had to figure out a way to move the equipment," Fredericks said. "We just started going from car to car, cutting people out, laying them on the ground."

Many motorists who weren't injured began helping those who were hurt. Fredericks saw people with major injuries, in severe pain. Some had broken bones. "There was a lot of screaming and crying."

Because of the poor visibility, Fredericks didn't know the magnitude of the crash until he walked its entire length.

"We work very bad accidents on the interstate, but it's usually two or three cars, with more fatalities sometimes," said Fredericks, who is also a paramedic and has worked for the county for 12 years. "But not 70 cars on fire."

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