A highway patrolman’s dash-mounted camera HAS captured the frantic efforts to rescue a woman from a burning car last November—a rescue that imperiled the troopers life…For that effort, Patrol Sergeant Dale Jinkens has been recognized as the State Employee of the month…
Jinkens came upon the burning wreckage of two cars on I-70 at Independence…and mobilized bystanders to move the woman’s burning car away from a concrete median so he could pull her out. "There was just a lot of people there relying on you to do something," he said in an interview for the Patrol.
He was able to pull the badly wounded and burning woman out of her car and put out the fire that was burning her skin and clothes. She suffered third-degree burns on one-third of her upper body, a broken neck, head trauma and a broken back. But she is recovering.
Follow this link to the Highway Patrol Web page about Jinkens’ actions.