Courage Under Fire

By Diane Peters

It was 1:30 in the morning on July 23, 2007, as Mark Barnard drove his new Chrysler 300 northbound on High­way 97 in British Columbia’s Okana­gan Valley. Beside him, Andy Hil­derman had just dozed off, and in the back seat, Mike Landry was in a deep sleep. Suddenly, Barnard’s view was punctuated by flames. A car in a ditch on the southbound side of the road was on fire.

Barnard pulled over and the three friends from Regina—all 21 at the time—were soon crossing the dark highway. Landry was glad it was dark: The three had been visiting a friend in Kelowna, and Landry had gone swimming in his shorts. Not wanting to ruin Barnard’s spotless upholstery, he’d stripped down and was wearing only his underwear and a Roughriders jersey.

Descending into the two-metre-deep ditch, they saw flames coming out of an upside-down car. As they got closer, they heard a woman screaming, “Help me! I’m burning!” The intense cries made Hilderman’s blood run cold. He looked in through the car’s driver side and saw fingertips reaching through the blown-out window. Trapped inside was 25-year-old Julie Wharram. The waitress, originally from Ontario, had been driving to Edmonton with a co-worker. Her passenger, covered in blood, was nearby and apparently in shock. Barnard helped him up to the road.

Meanwhile, Hilderman grabbed Wharram’s hand. “We’re going to get you out of there; you’ll be okay,” he said as she continued to scream. He crawled in through the window and discovered she was hanging upside down, held firmly in place by her seat belt. Hilderman backed out of the car after just a few seconds, the smoke making it impossible to breathe.

“We need water!" He and Landry ran back to their car and and grabbed the few cans of Coke and Red Bull remaining in the cooler. They then ran back to Wharram’s car and poured the fizzing liquid onto the flames. But the fire inside was still going strong. At the same time, Barnard climbed into Wharram’s car through the window, determined to free her. Within seconds, he knew it was hopeless—her weight was pulling the belt so taut that the buckle wouldn’t open. “We’ve got to cut the belt,” he said.

As Wharram continued to scream, the fire licking at her legs, the three men dashed up to the highway, where several cars had since pulled over. A man gave Landry a knife, and back in the ditch, he crawled into the car. It took him just seconds to saw through the seat belt. “I’ve got her down!” he yelled. Barnard helped him grab Wharram’s body. Hilderman grasped her legs but lost his grip, her skin peeling away. He grabbed hold of her again and they wrested her out of the car as a tire popped. The noise shocked Landry into realizing how much danger they’d placed themselves in.

Working as a team, they got her out of the ditch and onto the road. The men’s hands and clothes were covered with burned flesh, the pungent smell piercing their nostrils. Shortly, an ambulance and an RCMP cruiser arrived. Immediately afterwards, something whistled and more tires popped. The men turned back towards the car in time to see it explode.

Wharram and her passenger were taken to nearby Vernon Jubilee Hospital. He had a concussion and a broken nose; she had third-degree burns to 25 percent of her body, mainly her legs and arms. She was airlifted to Vancouver General Hospital, where she stayed for nearly two months.

Although the three friends quickly returned to their lives, the sound of Wharram’s screams and the smell of burning flesh have stayed with them. “When it haunts me, I talk to those two guys, then it’s okay again,” says Hilderman. He credits their success that night to teamwork and friendship. “I didn’t worry about what [they] were doing. I knew they were doing the right thing.”

Wharram’s father would agree. “Every time I think of Mike, Andy and Mark, I’m so thankful they did what they had to do,” says Ken Wharram. As for Wharram’s mom, Lise Vincent, the three are always in her thoughts. “We have a photo of the boys on our fridge,” she says. “Not a day goes by I don’t think of them.”