Crash victim meets rescuer

Fourteen-year-old Modesty Warden doesn’t remember a lot about the accident that left her badly injured and trapped inside a burning car, but she does remember the voice of the man who came to save her.“I’m sorry, honey. This is going to hurt, but I have to get you out of here.”With those words, 48-year-old Mike Bailey reached his arms inside the car and pulled the teenager out of the wreckage. Moments later, the car’s crumpled remains were engulfed in flames. Asked for mother’s name Bailey stood over Modesty, holding her hands and talking to her until police arrived. He asked her for her mother’s name.“I needed to find out who she belonged to,” Bailey said.On Monday, Bailey and his wife, April, who live across the street from where the accident happened, visited with Modesty and her mother, Carol Lofgren, at OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center where Modesty is recovering from a broken pelvis, femur and hand, bruises, and burns.Upon hearing about a man who pulled her daughter from the car after a one-vehicle accident last week, Lofgren enlisted family members to help her find him so she and her daughter could personally thank him for saving Modesty’s life. Considers him a hero “There are no words that can express how thankful I am,” said Lofgren, who considers Bailey a hero. “He saved my daughter’s life. It feels like he saved my life. My kids are my life. If one of them were to die, a part of me would die for sure.”Bailey, a former U.S. Marine and fire prevention specialist, got home from his job at the Chrysler plant about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. He couldn’t sleep. He watched TV, got a snack. At about 4 a.m., he headed to bed.“I had just laid down and no sooner rolled over to get comfortable, when I heard the skidding and the crash,” Bailey said. “I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window to see which one of my trucks was just run over. Nothing was wrong with the trucks, but I didn’t feel right so I went downstairs. I grabbed a flashlight, a coat and my cell phone.”When Bailey walked outside, he could see a small fire and the badly mangled car across the street in a set of trees. He saw a teenage boy walking along the side of the car. He called 911, walked up to the boy and led him away from the accident.“He was badly hurt on the face. His legs were injured. He seemed out of it,” Bailey said. “I sat him down and was telling him to stay still until the paramedics got there, and then I heard her. I heard her scream ‘Help me. I’m burning. Help me.’ ” Hanging halfway out Bailey rushed back to the car to find Modesty hanging halfway out of an opening on the passenger side. The back seat and the driver’s side of the car were on fire.“I tried achat cialis getting out, but I couldn’t move,” Modesty said. “I was blacking out.”Bailey dragged Modesty by her arms to a spot in the yard next to where the car crashed. When he looked back, the entire car was consumed in flames. Modesty lay in the grass, going in and out of consciousness.Within seconds, police and emergency crews arrived at the scene at Charles Street and Wilcox Road.Bailey, a Kokomo, Ind., native who moved to Rockford two years ago, said he did what any parent would do.A parent’s ‘instinct’ “I don’t recommend anyone go near a car that’s on fire. I do have training and had knowledge of what I was doing,” he said. “But I think any parent would do it. You just have an instinct to save a child.”When she learned of her husband’s heroics, April Bailey said she was surprised and then upset.“She yelled at me,” Mike Bailey said.“I was upset that he didn’t wake me up and let me help him. He just went out there,” April Bailey said. “But I wasn’t surprised with what he did. He’s the kind of person who’d give you the shirt off his back.”On Monday, Modesty said she hoped to be going home Wednesday. Doctors tell her she’ll be recovering for several weeks. April Bailey said she and her husband plan to stay in touch with Modesty and her mom. As it turns out, they live only a few blocks from each other. Modesty and her older sister know one of the Baileys’ sons from school.

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