Reluctant hero puts flames out with hands

By Carly Udy
"Help, help, help ... help, get me out."
These were the desperate cries for help that greeted rescuer Geoff Rothwell as a Bay teenager lay trapped in the burning wreck of a car after a head-on smash.
What Mr Rothwell didn't realise at the time was that he knew the youth.
Mr Rothwell and another man dragged the burning victim out of the car's window and put out flames in his hair and clothes with their bare hands before emergency services arrived.
They were today being hailed heroes as more details of Tuesday night's fiery crash at Bethlehem emerged.
Tauranga teenager Jordan Evan Crockett died and seven others were injured after two cars collided and burst into flames on SH 2.
One of the vehicles lost control on a left-hand bend while overtaking a car in the right-hand passing lane.
Eli Muller, 16, a student at Otumoetai College and a member of the soccer 1st XI, was a passenger in Mr Crockett's car and was the trapped youth Mr Rothwell saved. Police say he owes his life to Mr Rothwell and the other rescuer, who did not want to be named.
"They certainly did save his life and are to be commended for their actions ... they're just ordinary people who stopped to help. Their actions were heroic," Senior Sergeant Ian Campion said.
Mr Rothwell, a 49-year-old Bethlehem man, was on his way to the Brookfield shops when he came across the crash.
He was one of the first on the scene and one of just a few bystanders brave enough to approach the blazing vehicle.
"Another car had stopped and they were assisting the family out of the 4WD, Mr Rothwell said.
" By the time I got to them, the other car was well alight and they said 'don't go near that one, it's gonna blow' but I know from my own experience with motor vehicles and racing that the car had already been hit in the back end.
"The fuel tank had already been ruptured so it wasn't going to blow up. The tyres were popping but that was all ... I went closer and then I heard a voice in the car going 'help, help, help ... help, get me out'," Mr Rothwell said."I pushed his head forward to get him back to the front window and grabbed a hold of him to pull him out and realised his seat belt was still on. I couldn't see the buckle for the flames so I just slid my hand down the seatbelt strap until I found the buckle and pushed it. This is all luck really."Mr Rothwell sustained singed arms and put Mr Muller's burning hair and clothes out with his hands.
"I was trying to put them out with my hands and I managed to do that and then I got him on the ground, luckily the grass was wet," he recalled.
"I went to see if I could do anything with Jordan in there but it was too late for that one. He was well engulfed. Just after that the hood lining fell down where Eli was sitting and that would have just covered him. It was a matter of 15 seconds maybe and he would have been dead," he said.He said it wasn't until later when Mr Muller was sitting in the back of a police car that he recognised the boy's name.
"I thought hold on a minute. We're very good friends of the family, we used to be neighbours in Otumoetai for four or five years. My kids and theirs went to playcentre and kindy together ... we had BBQs and hung out. That was even more rewarding to actually pull somebody you know out, although you'd do it for anybody," he said.
Mr Rothwell said he had been phoned by Mr Muller's father and thanked for his actions and he planned to visit the teenager in hospital.
He said he had been told Mr Muller had had an operation on his arm and was on morphine for his burns.Mr Rothwell, a panelbeater, said he did not accept the title of hero.
"You just go and do what you gotta do, you don't think about it. You don't go there to be a hero. I'm pleased I could help him but saddened I couldn't do anything else for the other," he said.
Meanwhile, sports teams playing indoor leagues in the Centresports Stadium at Mount Maunganui are this week observing a minute's silence out of respect for the Crockett family.
Jordan Crockett's father, Wade, is a partner in Centresports, formerly Mount Indoor Sports, in Newton St. PICTURE: JOHN BORREN:Geoff Rothwell reflects on the fiery fatal smash in which he saved the life of a trapped youth he knew.