Dave Rankila already had put in his day as a St. Louis County highway crew supervisor and was on his other "job'' -- Cook Volunteer Ambulance Service driver -- when he arrived at Tuesday night's fatal accident near Cook.
It was a bad scene at the intersection of state highways 73 and 1, Rankila said, with five people in a Honda Accord pinned underneath a big semitrailer carrying grain. All five of the people trapped were from a local summer camp.
To make matters worse, a fire kept erupting at the front of the smashed car, probably from a burning tire, Rankila said.
"We were the second ambulance on the scene and someone said, 'Boy, we could sure use something to get that semitrailer off the car'," he said. "Well, of course I knew the county garage was only about a mile away."
So Rankila put his county highway hat back on and retrieved the John Deere 644 loader from the Linden Grove county garage.
"It's a medium-sized loader and they were wondering whether it had the power to do it, but I knew it could,'' said Rankila, who used the loader to gingerly lift the semi off the car, allowing rescue crews to retrieve the people trapped inside.
"I don't think it was heroic or anything. ... It just expedited the matter a bit," said Rankila, of rural Cook. "There were a lot of people who responded to this to help."
Rankila said thanks to a training meeting that night there were enough first responders on the scene, so he didn't have to drive the ambulance to the hospital. Helicopter ambulances also arrived to ferry victims, and fire departments from Cook, Orr and even Hibbing helped out, he said.
And as it turns out it was a lucky thing that Rankila still had keys to the county garage and the loader, because as of today he won't. Wednesday was his 62nd birthday and his last day on the job. He's retiring after 28 years with the county Public Works Department.
"It was a pretty busy last couple of days,'' Rankila said with a chuckle. "It's too bad we lost one there. But we got the others out .... And maybe now you know that the county highway guy isn't always a bad guy."
The crash happened about 6:30 p.m. when the Honda, westbound on Minnesota Highway 1, apparently went through a stop sign at Minnesota Highway 73 and collided with the semi carrying spring wheat, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.
Passenger Elizabeth C. Hill, 19, of Liberty, Mo., was fatally injured. She was a counselor at the camp.
The other three people injured were airlifted to Essentia Health-St. Mary's Medical Center, where passenger Jonathon A. Vickers, 22, was listed in critical condition Wednesday; driver Whitney R. Cragun, 21, of Ironton was listed in fair condition; and passenger Ivana Brokesova was listed in good condition.
Passenger Vatilina Kadurina was not injured, the State Patrol said.
All had been working at Voyageurs Lutheran Ministry's Camp Vermillion. Staff there said Cragun probably would be released Wednesday, Vickers was responding well and Brokesova was stable.
Cragun is a camp counselor; Vickers, a counselor from England; Brokesova, a counselor from Slovakia; and Kadurina, a kitchen worker from Ukraine.
The driver of the semitrailer, Leslie O. Abraham, 40, of Rainy River, Ont., was not injured.
"Please keep her family and friends in your prayers," the ministry wrote on its Facebook page.
"We will share information regarding Libby's family's decisions as well as updates about the injured staff on the VLM Facebook page and VLM website," the posting said. "We have a grief team working with the staff and we are arranging a healing service at Camp Vermilion this Saturday, July 6 at 4 p.m. All are welcome for that service."
