[StBernard] St. Bernard Sheriff's deputies help woman escape overturned tanker truck on fire on I-10 in eastern New Orleans

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Sheriff's deputies help woman escape overturned tanker truck on
fire on I-10 in eastern New Orleans
Print NOLA Community Submission By NOLA Community Submission 
on September 04, 2014 at 2:31 PM, updated September 04, 2014 at 2:40 PM

What they saw and heard next: the 24-year-old woman driver screaming
hysterically as she tried to escape the truck's cab, rushed them into
action.

The deputies, along with an off-duty New Orleans police officer, were among
the first vehicles at the scene after the truck which carried 8,600 gallons
of gasoline overturned on the east-bound side of the interstate about 4 p.m.

Four St. Bernard deputies and reserve officers, Richard Scheuermann, Jeremy
Roig, Corey Gonzales and Scott Winters ran to the burning truck and the
others dealt with traffic on the interstate, keeping vehicles a safe
distance away.

Also on the scene from the Sheriff's Office were Heather Lyons, Shelton
Smith, Shane Samaniego, Merlin Flores and Andrew Mowers.

Sheriff James Pohlmann said he was proud of the actions of the officers
involved, who remained calm in a pressure situation to try to help someone.

"We did a 25-yard dash'' toward the woman driver who was screaming, said
Reserve Division Deputy Gonzales. "She was on the passenger side'' trying to
climb out of the overturned 18-wheeler.

"It was wild,'' said Jeremy Roig, who works in the Criminal Records Division
of the Sheriff's Office. He said there wasn't time to hesitate by thinking
about whether they would be injured by running toward the fire.

"We were thinking about getting her to safety,'' Roig said of the driver.

Gonzales said, "We fell back on our training'' to just react and get her
away from the truck, saying "it was a team effort.''

"It happened so fast,'' said Scheuermann, who is a corrections officer in
St. Bernard Parish Prison. "We were running and I could see her hands (as
she was trying to get out) and heard her screaming.''

When officers got to the driver, Jasmine Henderson, she was climbing out of
the cab and the NOPD officer and deputies helped her get off the truck and
got her to a safe distance from the blaze. Henderson was treated later at a
hospital for minor injuries.

It was just a short period after they all got away that the truck erupted
into a heavier fire.

Also, several of the officers said, it wasn't until after it was over they
even realized how hot the fire had been when they saw how much they were
sweating.

The officers, who have been training several days a week at the Slidell
Regional Police Academy, never made it to class that night because they were
on the scene for several hours.