Evo Falcinelli said pulling a man out of a flipped over car and then crawling back in to shut the car off was no biggie. —Jake Kara photo
A town employee and volunteer firefighter who pulled a man from a flipped-over car and then crawled back in to turn it off, has been acknowledged for his courage by the Police Commission.
“I was driving down Route 7 going home and all of a sudden I looked over and saw this car on its roof,” said Evo Falcinelli, who works for the highway department and whose father of the same name was a longtime career firefighter here.
The accident occurred near Starrs Plain Road, which is in Danbury.
He said what he did “was no big deal.”
But it was a big deal to Police Commissioner Susan Craig, who saw the rescue, and suggested at a recent meeting that Mr. Falcinelli be recognized in some way.
“I was driving on Route 7 south,” she said. She saw the car, “and Evo Falcinelli and another woman had stopped just ahead of me.”
“We were looking in the car, and we were trying to determine if the [driver was] all right.”
She set up flares around the accident.
“Evo pulled open the passenger door and was trying to get the guy out,” she said.
“His foot was kind of stuck, and I got him out,” Mr. Falcinelli said. “He was a little discombobulated but he was OK.”
“He had not a scratch on him,” Commissioner Craig said, adding that she told him, “You’ve got an angel or two on our shoulder.”
“I said to Evo, ‘jeez, don’t you think we ought to turn off the car?”
Mr. Falcinelli crawled in and tried to take out the key, but had to put the car in park first.
Mr. Falcinelli has been involved in extrication rescues before as a firefighter, he said.
