SAVOY, Ill. (AP) — A 40-year-old Naperville man is being called a hero after helping several members of a family escape from their van after it rolled over and landed upside-down in a pond.
Mike Roberson told The News-Gazette that he was driving north in Interstate 57 Wednesday night when he saw the van fishtail and swerve off the expressway and roll just south of Champaign.
Roberson scrambled to the van and began helping some of the nine people inside get out.
Roberson could hear screaming and helped pulled children out first.
Police say one passenger, 43-year-old Murtuza Rajkotwala of Willowbrook in the Chicago suburbs, died. His wife, 45-year-old Farida Rajkotwala, is hospitalized.
Others weren’t seriously injured.
Dale Grimm is fire chief in nearby Tolono. He said Roberson is “definitely a hero.”