By Richard Weir
The Boston Herald
ARLINGTON, Mass. — A quick-thinking MBTA worker plucked a badly injured passenger from a burning taxi just moments before the mangled cab burst into a fireball after flying airborne into a tree along the Mystic Valley Parkway in Arlington yesterday.
“He could very well have saved this gentleman’s life,” Arlington Fire Chief Robert Jefferson said of John Bailey’s actions, noting that when firefighters arrived shortly after the 7 a.m. crash, the car was already engulfed in flames.
Bailey, 63, downplayed his heroics, but his boss was pretty impressed.
“We couldn’t be more proud of him. He represents the best of MBTA employees,” said MBTA General Manager Richard Davey.
The 36-year-veteran Green Line instructor was driving to work when he spotted the out-of-control cablaunch over a curb near the Route 60 rotary, sail down an embankment and smash into a tree near the river’s edge.
“It looked like the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ with the car flying in the air,” said Bailey, adding that he saw flames shooting from the taxi’s engine and ran to the wreckage.
Bailey said he found the driver’s seat empty but discovered a passenger, identified by police as George Kale, 42, of Lexington, bleeding heavily from his head and leg, moaning, and strapped in his seat belt in the crumpled backseat.
“I knew I didn’t have much time,” he said, adding that after struggling to unlatch the seat belt, he carefully pulled the man from the car and shouted for help, getting another good Samaritan to assist in carrying the injured man up the embankment. “I was like, ‘We got to get out of here before this thing blows.’”
Some 30 seconds later, he said, “The whole car went right up.”
Jefferson said the passenger, who suffered a broken femur, neck and head injuries and facial cuts, was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, along with the driver, identified as Jean Franck, who was ejected from the cab and found about 40 feet from the wreckage.
State police said Franck, 47, of Medford, a driver for Arlex Taxi with a history of speeding and other offenses, was being charged with reckless driving, lane violations and driving with a suspended license. Arlex officials did not return phone messages.
Copyright 2010 Boston Herald Inc.