ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Real-Life Heroes

Life on Orange County’s freeways has enough thrills and chills to keep the adrenaline pumping under ordinary circumstances. But last week, a runaway truck sent hearts racing when it plunged down an off-ramp of Interstate 5 in Laguna Hills near the Laguna Hills Mall. Out of control, the vehicle halted only when it toppled onto an automobile driven by a Trabuco Canyon woman. As a fire broke out, the truck driver escaped, shaken but without serious injuries.

Later, the California Highway Patrol would say that the woman trapped in the car could easily have burned to death--were it not for Richard Boen, Lynn (Doc) Dull and Kevin Sliter.

The three brave passersby jumped from their autos, pulled open a crushed car door and freed the trapped motorist, and not a moment too soon: Soon the car was engulfed in flames.

In another incredible bit of luck for the motorist, Boen is a former paramedic and Sliter and Dull are both nurses. By the time firefighters arrived, the freed driver was settled under a nearby tree.

It took the firefighters about an hour to put out the blaze, which had grown into a 200-foot-long wall of flames fed by fuel spilled from the truck.

The efforts of the three motorists who risked their lives amid the possibility of an explosion was remarkable.

Traffic was a mess that day around the freeway exit and on the nearby surface streets. But at one crucial moment in the rush hour, a life was saved . . . thanks to the heroism of modern-day Good Samaritans.