Gardner Woman Who Helped Rescue Driver was Going on Instinct

Rachel Kane was on her way to work Friday morning. She was headed northbound on Route 47 when she saw a truck in the ditch on the side of the road.

"The pickup turned on its side and it was in flames," Kane, of Gardner, said. "The driver of the truck was halfway out of the vehicle and me and two other guys pulled him the rest of the way out of the vehicle."

The vehicle was part of a two-vehicle crash, between the pickup and a car, that resulted in three people being taken to the hospital. One, the driver of the car, was airlifted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.

Although Kane volunteers with the Grundy County Posse, a group that volunteers for search and rescue missions on horseback, she is not trained in emergency medicine.

"Basically I just jumped in and helped, I was never trained for it, no," she said.

Kane did not act alone; she was helped by two gentlemen who also jumped in and assisted the driver of the pickup truck. Other people jumped in to help the driver and passenger of the white car.

"I had gotten there 30 seconds after everything had stopped," Kane said. "(The driver) was already halfway out of his truck.

"It was just, 'The truck is in flames, you need to get out, you need to get away from it in case it blows up.' "

Kane said she was just operating on instinct. And she was not traumatized by the experience—quite the opposite.

"I just did what I could to help out," she said. "Hopefully they can help someone else down the road."