Heroes

Last Friday afternoon, yet another road accident happened on the A63 which is Hull's prime link road with West Yorkshire. It seems that a Mercedes, driven dangerously, collided with a small Peugeot carrying two young female soldiers homewards for the weekend. They had been working at the RAF base in Leconfield.

Immediately after this shocking crash, two friends driving back towards Hull in the opposite carriageway leapt out of their car and scrambled over the central barrier to see what they could do to assist. They had been fishing all afternoon near North Cave.

Seeing smoke and flames, they knew they had to act quickly. One of them kicked open the driver's door. They couldn't unbuckle her seatbelt. Fortunately, one of the men had a fishing knife in his pocket. He had sharpened it just that morning and so he was able to speedily cut away the belt. Together the friends were then able to pull the nineteen year old driver clear before her car exploded in a ball of flames.

The men's names are Steve Blakeston and David Upton - pictured below on a bridge over the A63. They are both fifty two years old. However, instead of basking in the warm glow of publicity about their bravery, both men are filled with regret and sorrow. As they were struggling to release the driver, they had no idea that there was another young woman in the crushed passenger side of the vehicle. She died at the scene.

To me these men are true heroes. They acted instinctively to save someone else, ignoring the obvious risk to their own lives. In a world where news services leap on the bad news stories, they demonstrate the essential goodness of human beings. I would like to think that if I had been there I would have done the same - leapt in to rescue - but I am not at all sure that I would have been able to find such courage inside me.