Local soldiers save trucker from possible explosion

(Cpl. Collins and Spc. Villegas in their firetruck before the fateful mission.)

LSA Anaconda- Alpha Company of the 1/293rd Battalion from Warsaw, IN runs armored security for supply convoys out of the busiest supply base in theater. They are out on Iraqi roads most nights, all night.

As National Guardsmen, they’ve only been training for this mission for several months, but sometimes it helps that Alpha Company’s soldiers have other full-time careers.

On Friday night it just so happened that when a tanker truck the Indiana soldiers were escorting rolled over, the two Indiana soldiers closest to the accident- Specialist John Villegas, 41, of Portage, IN and Corporal Christopher Collins, 26, of Kenosha, WI- both knew exactly what to do. They’re both fulltime firefighters back home.

“We came around the corner and I was in the gunner’s hatch, and I told Collins, look at that truck on its side,” Villegas said. Spc. Villegas had more emergency medical experience, so the combat veteran who was a gunner on his last tour near Mosul, jumped out first. But Villegas needed help. The tanker driver, an East Asian, who had probably taken the tight corner too fast, was pinned upside down and the tanker was gushing gallons of fuel. Villegas cut the man’s seat belt and then he and Cpl. Collins began to try to yank the steering wheel that was pinning the man.

“I went straight to fire rescue mode,” Villegas said. “I knew I had to do some kind of extraction. I was going to try to peel the dash off of him with a strap connected to our truck.”

“There was some adrenaline going,” Villegas admitted, “especially since I’ve been to some tanker accidents but not with hundreds of gallons of fuel pouring out.”


(Spc. Villegas clutching toys he throws to Iraqi children.)

“We had to move the steering wheel,” Villegas said, but “with all the strength that I had I couldn’t. So Collins literally, he locked my waist while I’m holding the steering wheel so it was like double pulling.”

Still they couldn’t budge the pinned driver. “Finally Sgt. (Justin) Anderson (28, of Columbia City) came and with that little bit extra, we got him out,” Villegas said.

“I bandaged him and stopped the bleeding,” Villegas said. “We got him by our truck and shock kicked in. He’s Indian; he went from dark to white. So I told Collins get me a stick kit, we started getting fluids in him.”

Staff Sgt. Daryl Bollhoefer, 25, of Logansport, their convoy commander, was manning radio communications with battalion headquarters from his Humvee about a mile ahead of the accident. “I kept asking them ‘is it life-threatening, do I need to call a medevac (rescue helicopter)?” Bollhoefer said.

(Staff Sg. Bollhoefer looking out the windshield he marked up with a grease pen from all the night's communications.)

Specialist Villegas responded that he thought the injured trucker was going into shock.

“I was real proud of the way they handled it,” Bollhoefer said, “very calm, very patient. They gave constant updates to the medevac. That’s the first nine-line I’ve ever called in my life.”

It’s funny how sometimes the most prepared truck team gets the most action. The team of Villegas, Collins and driver- Spc. Kyle Flumbaum, 19, of Cromwell, IN, have run the most missions out of their entire company. Just last week they were returning from a convoy to Baghdad when they saw tracers being fired at them. Villegas returned fire with his .50 cal.

As for this rescue, “I was just doing my job,” Villegas said. “It was kind of God-sent, because we volunteer for every mission. Sergeant Bollhoefer came late last night and asked us a favor to run with him. Today would have been our day off, but we said sure. And when he said we’d be in the fire truck we started laughing, because we haven’t been in this thing yet.”

When the chopper arrived Villegas and Collins had to run approximately 200 meters carrying the wounded man on a stretcher. Meanwhile local Iraqi Police and Army showed up wondering what was causing the blockage in the narrow road.

“I actually got out a pen and paper and drew a map to tell them what was happening,” said Pfc. Benjamin Flohr, 19, of Logansport, who was pulling security at the tail of the convoy.

The Iraqi soldiers took out their cell phones to call ahead to their checkpoint. “I’m telling them- Gas, Go boom!” Flohr said, worried they didn’t understand the danger of the situation.

But when the Iraqis heard the word “Boom” they shut off their phones shouting, “No, no IED!”

They thought we thought he was calling in an IED (Improvised Explosive), Flohr said chuckling in retrospect.

“Everything fell right into place,” Villegas said the next morning after the rescue. “What are the chances you got two firefighters, playing firemen? Overall we worked awesome as a team. We had a plan ready. I figured I’m going to die either way. Either someone’s going to shoot me or we’re going to blow up.”

Fortunately the soldiers risking their lives to save another didn’t lead to any casualties.
(The truck team of Villegas, Collins and Flumbaum cleaning their equipment the next morning.)

“I don’t care if he’s a third-country national, I’m in charge of him from here to there,” Staff Sgt. Bollhoefer said of the injured tanker driver. “I have to do everything in my power to make sure he arrives. That’s the hardest test we’ve had.”

The man was airlifted to the Theater Hospital at LSA Anaconda less than 20 minutes after his vital signs started to fail.

“He’ll always thank American soldiers, Villegas said. “If nobody else does, he will.”