Steven Gorbet doesn’t know why he decided to try to rescue an apparently unconscious man stuck in a vehicle that veered off Interstate 5 on Tuesday night, hitting a tree and catching fire. Gorbet simply jumped into action.
“I don’t know,” Gorbet said in a phone interview. “I just kind of did it.”
The Battle Ground resident was southbound on the freeway shortly before midnight, headed home from a hunting trip in the Leavenworth area, when he noticed what he thought was a small brush fire. It turned out an SUV had crashed into a tree and was burning from its engine. The driver of the vehicle died.
The Washington State Patrol said that the unidentified driver behind the wheel of an SUV was southbound on I-5 at Milepost 10 in the center lane when it struck the rear right of a Nissan Versa sedan. It left the roadway to the right, hit a tree in a ditch and caught fire, troopers said.
The driver of the Nissan was uninjured.
Two Fire District 6 fire engines were dispatched to the crash scene, spokesman Dave Schmitke said.
Gorbet spotted the crash before emergency responders arrived. He grabbed a fire extinguisher out of the trunk of his vehicle and went straight for the fire.
The SUV was slightly lifted from ramming its front end into the tree; it was leaning toward the ground on its passenger side with the driver side thrust into the air, Gorbet said.
At first, he saw the vehicle’s engine was burning. The fire extinguisher did little to stop the spread of flames. So, Gorbet tried punching the passenger side window out, and when that didn’t work, he pulled out a pocket knife and stabbed the glass several times before it shattered.
Behind the wheel, a man was in the seat, his arms dangling. Gorbet said he reached inside and pulled on the man, but he only moved a little bit.
“He was stuck. I’m a pretty big guy and I couldn’t get him to budge,” Gorbet said.
The fire spread quickly, and flames singed one of Gorbet’s arms and his beard, he said.
Onlookers started yelling at Gorbet to get away from the vehicle as the fire spread. He heeded their advice and backed away from the SUV. His foot got stuck in something on the ground, cutting his ankle in the process, he said.
Moments after Gorbet limped away from the SUV, it exploded, he said.
Paramedics and firefighters arrived within minutes. Paramedics asked Gorbet if he’d been injured during his attempted rescue. There was blood on his hands and arms. Gorbet said he wasn’t sure. The blood turned out to be the driver’s.
It also turned out Gorbet knew the man he tried to pull from the wreckage. As a carpenter, he’d worked with the man, who at that time was a concrete finisher, at a worksite. The identity of the victim has not been released.
Two fire crews spent about 10 minutes extinguishing the fire, Schmitke said. Firefighters were requested to stay on scene to help retrieve the remains. What caused the SUV’s driver to lose control is under investigation.
Trooper spokesman Will Finn said the agency continues to work alongside the Clark County Medical Examiner to officially identify the driver.
