A Florence man was one of two Army majors who came to the aid of a Leavenworth woman whose car wound up in a snowy ditch following a car accident.
Maj. Fred Philipp, son of Bill and Sylvia Philipp of Florence, is a student at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth.
Philipp said the accident happened on his property and a CGSC colleague, Major Dave Noble, saw it happen. Noble was driving along the rural road near Philipp’s property about 2 p.m. Dec. 16 when he saw a vehicle swerve off the roadway and into a ditch. The driver’s car slid down a 10-foot embankment into an ice-covered creek.
The area’s first major snowstorm Dec. 15 and 16 made the roads and hillsides slick with ice and snow.
“I pulled over to the side of the road and was screaming at her to make sure she was OK,” Noble said.”
When Philipp saw Noble get out of his car and run toward his home, he said he at first thought Noble was shouting at him. In the creek, the car wasn’t visible from the road or Philipp’s house, so it was by luck that Noble saw the accident.
Both men ran to help the woman, who was pressed against the side of her overturned car. They realized that under the ice, the freezing water was almost waist high. The woman, who is in her 60s, was unable to climb out of the car.
With temperatures barely in the teens that day and her car half-filled with water, Philipp and Noble said they knew they had to act quickly.
“She must have been really cold in there because she was standing in water,” Philipp said.
Philipp ran back to his house to get a ladder, while neighbors and the Leavenworth County sheriff arrived. They inserted the ladder into the car and helped the woman climb out to the opposite side of the car.
“There was real danger with our ladder. Her car could have toppled over,” Noble said. “The car was upside down and the center of gravity was unbalanced.”
After about 10 to 15 minutes, the woman was rescued and wrapped in blankets.
Philipp and Noble said the military mindset helped them handle the situation.
Philipp, a 1988 graduate of West Florence High School, joined the S.C. National Guard in 1987, then went on active duty following his commissioning in 1996 from the ROTC program at Francis Marion University.
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