Vic: Cabbie fleeced as he pulls man from burning wreck

AAP General News (Australia)
04-08-2007
Vic: Cabbie fleeced as he pulls man from burning wreck

By Catherine Best

MELBOURNE, April 8 AAP - A courageous cabbie who risked his life to save a Victorian
man from a burning car wreck seconds before it exploded has been heralded a hero.

But the good deed cost Adrian Davies his night's takings when a thief seized the moment
to ransack his taxi.

Mr Davies described as "gut wrenching" discovering he had been fleeced of about $300
after pulling the bloodied driver from an upturned car less than a minute before it exploded.

The taxi driver of seven years was on the job when he came across the burning car in
Marine Parade, Hastings, south-east of Melbourne, shortly after 10pm (AEST) yesterday.

The car had ricocheted off a sign post, ploughed into a tree and flipped, leaving the
driver suspended upside down and unconscious in the burning wreckage.

The fearless cabbie described how he leapt to action, braving the flames with two others
to pull the driver free.

"The seatbelt was entangled around him, I asked for a knife and we got a knife and
cut the seatbelt and dragged him away from the car and by that time the car exploded,"

Mr Davies told AAP.

"It made the old heart pump a little bit."

Mr Davies said he didn't have time to think that his life was on the line.

"I suppose we didn't really think about that, we were more thinking about getting him out.

"If we didn't get a knife as quick as we did, it could have been a different story,
it could have been a fatality."

Mr Davies had activated an emergency button in the cab to alert paramedics.

It wasn't until the drama was over that he realised his cash was gone.

"Pretty gut-wrenching, I just thought ... you can't trust anybody these days."

Sergeant Andy Brockway, of Hastings police, was disgusted by the theft.

"That's just a despicable act when you've got a person trying to save somebody else's
life and something like that occurs, it's shocking," he told AAP.

Surveillance footage taken inside the taxi failed to capture the theft on camera.

Sgt Brockway said the injured driver, aged 35, would have perished if not for the selfless
bravery of Mr Davies and his two companions, whom police have yet to identify.

"It's very heroic ... they've gone above and beyond what a person would normally do,
to enter a vehicle - which is engulfed in flames already - to save another human being
is just exceptional."

The Hastings driver was taken to Frankston Hospital in a stable condition and later
transferred to The Alfred with suspected spinal injuries.

Police are investigating the cause of the accident.

Sgt Brockway has formally nominated Mr Davies for a bravery medal, but the modest taxi
driver says he is no hero.

"No, no, my parents brought me up that way - to help out each other," he said.

AAP cmb/gfr/jm

KEYWORD: EXPLODED NIGHTLEAD

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