FEATURES

Rick's Story...

Saturday, 06 April 2013 01:10

Fueled by Determination

By Amy Collett (for usatriathlon.org)

I came across this story the other day while looking for something totally unrelated. My mother in-law wrote it just months before passing away in September 2004. It is a story about her son and the accident he had when driving home from Furman University in 1990.

A young man headed home from college one Saturday afternoon when the driver side of his jeep was struck by a pickup driven by an elderly man who had run a stop sign. It killed the elderly man instantly. The jeep was shoved several feet off the highway into the yard of a home. It then flipped over and caught on fire. The young man was unconscious and seat belted with his feet surrounded by and in a blaze of fire. Mr. Bob Broadrick, from LaFayette, Ga., was traveling by just after the accident occurred. Mr. Broadrick did not think of himself. He stopped,...

jumped out of his vehicle and ran to the burning jeep. When he could not get the seatbelt to release, he used his pocket knife and cut the belt. He then pulled the man several feet from the jeep; just far enough away. Seconds later the jeep exploded. He later told the young man