COFFEE COUNTY, Tenn. -- By the time neighbors saw smoke curling over the ridge, Special Agent Zachary Angelo was already in his truck racing toward it.
Just after 9:20 a.m., Sept. 20, the Angelo family were in the middle of an ordinary morning, with bacon sizzling on the stove. A curl of smoke triggered the detector, so they opened the windows to clear the air.
Upstairs, Angelo’s son had set down his video game to read a book. With his gaming headset off and the window open, he was the only one in the house who heard tires screeching and the sharp snap of metal against a tree, Angelo said.
The child went to the living room and told his parents he thought there had been a crash.
From the porch, Angelo and his wife couldn’t see the accident, but they spotted smoke rising above the ridge and faintly heard cries for help. Angelo, a former firefighter and EMT, told his wife to stay with the children as he got in his truck and drove toward the hill.
At the crest of the hill, Angelo found cars stopped at odd angles, drivers frozen, eyes fixed on the wreck ahead. A mid-sized SUV had left the road and crumpled against a tree. Flames rolled from the engine compartment as the heat hit in waves, he said.
A young man in his early 20s was already on scene, he added.
“The man had smashed the back driver’s side window with a jack and told the driver, a woman in her 20s, to climb to the back seat and unlock the door so he could help her out,” he said. “But the front passenger remained trapped, her legs crushed beneath the collapsed dashboard.”
Angelo told a bystander to call 911, then moved toward the SUV.
“I told the guy he needed to get out of the vehicle,” Angelo said. “He turned to me and said he couldn’t get her out, and at that point I told him to step back and let me get into the vehicle.”
From the back seat, Angelo tried to pull her loose, but her legs were wedged tight. When that didn’t work, he went over the center console and seats to reach the passenger compartment.
“The passenger was conscious but panicked, screaming that her legs were trapped,” Angelo said. “On the first pull, nothing moved.”
With only his arms to work in the cramped space, he pulled again until one leg came free, then the other. He lifted her over the shattered console, into the back seat and out the rear door into waiting hands, Angelo said.
“Hold her steady, keep her spine still,” he instructed bystanders, before he turned back and helped move the driver the flames.
“Training takes over,” he said later. “Short commands or giving tasks, one at a time.”
That calm under pressure came from years of experience, Angelo said, which began volunteering with the Huntingtown Volunteer Fire Department in Maryland at 15, where he earned EMT, firefighter and rescue technician certifications while still in high school.
After graduation, he worked full-time as an EMT, logging four years of roadside rescues.
“You learn to make it as safe as you can, direct helpers and stabilize the injured,” he said. “But in all those calls, I’d never pulled someone from a burning car. This was a first for me.”
According to Angelo, it was about 1.5 to 2 minutes after the women were pulled out that the SUV was fully engulfed in flames. Small explosions cracked from the hood. A fire engine arrived afterward, smothering the worst of it.
In a nearby field, two medical helicopters dropped low, rotors flattening the grass.
Angelo assisted EMTs in immobilizing one of the women on a spine board before helping lift her onto a stretcher and toward the aircraft, he said. Both women were flown to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville with severe but survivable injuries.
Despite the dramatic rescue, he resists the word hero. Instead, he credits the string of small moments that placed his family in position to hear the crash, from the bacon burning, the windows open and his son’s headset being pulled off at the right time.
“If not for that,” Angelo said, “I wouldn’t have been there in time.”
But, according to Special Agent Craig Hotaling, AFOSI PJ Det. 3 Special Agent-in-Charge, that humility reflects his character.
“Zach approaches every challenge with humility and composure,” Hotaling said. “The way he responded that day is the same way he approaches our work, by being calm under pressure and focused on protecting others.”
Most days, at AFOSI PJ, Angelo defends others from threats they cannot see, like coordinating counterintelligence and guarding sensitive programs with bases and defense companies in Tennessee and northern Alabama.
“Special Agent Angelo’s actions are a reminder that our people are always ready to serve, whether its national security or saving lives in their own community,” said Special Agent Lee Russ, AFOSI PJ executive director. “His response under pressure reflects the professionalism we expect of all our agents at AFOSI PJ.”