Motorist helps save woman trapped in overturned car on Tylersville Road

WEST CHESTER, Ohio - A woman is alive, thanks to the quick thinking of a West Chester man over the weekend.

Beau Schuetz was driving to pick up donuts for his family's Saturday morning breakfast, when he saw an overturned burning car in a ditch off Tylersville Road in Fairfield Township. He didn't wait for someone else to call for help.

Not only did Schuetz call 911, but he also broke a window to help pull the woman to safety before her damaged car could explode.

The single car had crashed at the border between West Chester and Fairfield near Seward Road. Schuetz says he found the car upside down with the engine compartment on fire. It was wedged into a ditch in such a way that the front passenger doors could not be opened and the woman driver was trapped inside.

"I came around the corner and saw her sitting in the ditch with the car on its hood," Schuetz said. "Flames were coming out of the engine. That was the scary part."

Schuetz approached the car to see the woman inside.

"She was out of her seat belt. She was laying in between the two front seats, conscious. I asked if there was anybody else in the car. She said she was by herself. That's when the 911 dispatcher told me, 'Break the window. Get her out of there," he said.

Schuetz didn't have anything to break a window. That is, until a woman in a pick-up truck came by. She happened to have a cinder block.

"She grabbed the cinder block and I grabbed it from her and ran back. I hit the back passenger window twice and it shattered. Got all the excess glass out of the way. I reached in and pulled her out of the back window and scooted her up the side of the ditch," Schuetz said.

He says he continued to pull the woman farther and farther away from the wrecked car. 

"By this time, the flames were pretty visible. Gas and flames don't mix," he said.

Fortunately, firefighters arrived on the crash scene before the flames reached the gas tank and exploded.

Schuetz said that while the situation was nerve-wracking, he would do it again if he were in a similar situation.

"I would assume just about anybody would do it, if they were going down the street and saw someone in trouble. I would do it in a heart beat," he said.

Schuetz says he got a call from the woman's family Sunday night saying that she is resting comfortably and recovering well, after possibly suffering some foot and leg injuries.

He still doesn't know the woman's name.

So far, area police are not releasing it as their investigation continues.