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Overcast South Side High School juniors lauded for heroism
Pair ran to rescue trapped motorists
Local elected officials and residents recently gathered to celebrate the bravery and heroism of two young Rockville Centre men, Billy Mohr and Patrick Erickson, after the pair helped save motorists trapped in an overturned car in Baldwin on the night of March 13.
The pair, both juniors at South Side High School, received honors for their efforts. Mayor Francis Murray, State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, Town of Hempstead Clerk Kate Murray and village Trustees Nancy Howard and Emilio Grillo were all on hand outside Village Hall on March 22 to praise Mohr and Erickson and present them with more proclamations than they could carry.
“It looked like it was out of a movie,” Erickson said.
The two were in the backseat of two friends’ car that night at around 11:30 p.m., traveling along Grand Avenue in Baldwin, when they spotted an overturned car at the corner of Grand and Demott Avenue, according to Jerry Brown, public information officer for the Baldwin Fire Department.
Erickson and Mohr immediately told their friends to pull over, and called 911 as they ran over to the three injured passengers lying in the street, amid broken glass and metal.
As they tried to get their bearings, they shouted to Erickson and Mohr that one of their friends was still in the car. The boys then sprinted over to one of the back doors of the overturned vehicle and tried to pry it open, with help from two other pedestrians who happened upon the crash.
Together, the two boys and the two other men managed to rip the door off its hinges. One of the pedestrians had a pocketknife, with which Erickson and Mohr cut the tangled seat belt. With the last injured passenger free, the boys took a few seconds to collect themselves as emergency services personnel arrived, three minutes after their call.
“I didn’t really think about if I would get hurt,” Mohr recounted. “I don’t know what it was, but something just made me feel like, ‘We have to go over there and help them.’”
Mohr and Erickson said there was no time to mull over what they should do. There was an instinctual and instant understanding between them that they needed to act fast. “We just sort of knew,” Mohr said. “We didn’t say anything. We both just got out of the car and ran over.”
Perhaps that instinct was inherited: Mohr’s father, Billy, and grandfather, Lou, have served the village as firefighters for decades.
Members of the Baldwin Fire Department and the Nassau County Police Department arrived on the scene and transported the three injured passengers to nearby Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital, Brown said. Two engine companies, a ladder company and EMS also responded.
Erickson, Mohr and their two friends took another moment to collect themselves in their car. Then Erickson and Mohr realized they had blood all over their hands and clothes. They were in shock, they recalled.
The group drove around for a little while, trying to settle themselves before heading back to Rockville Centre. Even after each got home and told their families what had happened, they were still flashing back to the scene they had happened upon, and called each other in an effort to calm themselves down.
Friends and family watched on proudly at the recognition ceremony as the state, county, town and village officials lauded the teens’ efforts. “They are true hometown heroes,” Murray said, “and the village of Rockville Centre is a better place to live because of them.”
