Napa Man Saves Woman from Burning Car

A Napa man with a broken hand helped pull a San Francisco woman from the smoldering wreck of her car just moments before it exploded into flames on Saturday.

The dramatic rescue, which left 32-year-old Ryan Perez of Napa with a dozen stitches in his leg, took place at around 4:50 p.m., according to Officer Jaret Paulson of the .

Perez and his girlfriend, Victoria Rossi, were the first on the scene of the crash after 45-year-old Darcelle Chatoian drove her 2004 Ford Explorer off the road and into a ditch along Highway 29 on Mount St. Helena, just south of the Lake County line.

Her vehicle traveled down an embankment and struck a tree before coming to rest by a creek bed, where Perez spotted it as he and Rossi drove by on their way to visit a friend in Middletown.

“The roads over there are pretty scary,” said Perez, who knows the route well from frequent visits to Lake County.

The couple were riding in his lifted pickup truck when, Perez said, “I saw a vehicle in the ditch where it shouldn’t be.”

Pulling over, Perez climbed down to investigate and “saw a little light smoke coming from under the hood.”

A moment later, flames began to join the smoke as Perez “just barely heard someone moaning” inside the car.

“Please help me,” he heard her say, as a second motorist pulled over to help assist the injured driver.

Paulson identified the second man as 38-year-old Peter Hart of Clearlake.

Both men pulled on the car’s side doors, but the impact had forced them closed. The rescuers were unable to get to the driver through the rear door, Perez said, because the car was packed full of items that prevented them from reaching her.

While the two men worked to free Chatoian, Perez said, Rossi was directing traffic and asking for help from other passing motorists.

“One gentleman luckily had a fire extinguisher,” Perez said. “That gave us an extra 20 or 30 seconds.”

Desperate to pull the woman free before her vehicle exploded, Perez kicked in the driver’s side window, reached in to release her seatbelt and, with the help of another man, dragged Chatoian to safety as the flames began to engulf the Ford.

“That’s when I realized I was bleeding,” said Perez. “At first I didn’t feel it because of the adrenaline, but then it was spraying so much blood that once we got (Chatoian) up there (onto the highway), one of the other guys cut my shirt and made a tourniquet and my girlfriend drove me to the hospital.”

Perez, who already had a broken hand from an earlier mishap, wound up getting “10 or 12 stitches” at St. Helena Hospital, he said.

But the glass spared his Achilles tendon: “I got lucky,” Perez said.

Chatoian was airlifted by Redwood Empire Air Care Helicopter to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital with major injuries after the crash.

“I honestly believe she would have burned alive in the car,” without the combined efforts of the rescuers, Perez said.

“She didn’t have very much time … God was definitely watching out for her and everybody else helping her,” Perez said.

Paulson said the circumstances of the single-car crash were still being investigated, but that it appeared Chatoian continued driving straight ahead when the road took a left-hand curve.