GUARDIAN ANGELS RUSH IN AND VANISH! 2009
The Conroe Police Department wants to honor three men who, like guardian angels, helped an officer rescue a man from a burning car Saturday night – and then just disappeared.The man pulled from the car is in the intensive care unit at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston’s Texas Medical Center, a friend of his said Tuesday.Officer Allan Bell, 33, who joined the department 14 months ago, was on patrol in the 5200 block of West Davis Street around 11:45 p.m. Saturday and saw a red Pontiac four-door sedan driving ahead of him in the same direction. Bell watched as the vehicle drifted off the road, struck a concrete culvert, flipped in the air and burst into flames.Bell stopped his car and ran to the burning Pontiac to check on anyone in the car.“At first, I thought I had a drunk driver,” Bell said. “When I saw it flip, it just went to something completely different.” Trapped inside the Pontiac was Aaron Puffer, 38, of Katy, owner of Major League Beginnings, a company that introduces college baseball coaches to talented high school players. Puffer, according to a July 7 story in The Courier, played in the College World Series with Creighton University in 1991 and was a pitcher for the California Angels’ minor league team. Bell was joined by three men who stopped to help, and who can be seen on the dashboard camera video from Bell’s patrol car running toward the burning vehicle. Here is a link to that video.“He was a big boy,” Bell said about Puffer, who was listed at 6 feet 2 inches and 230 pounds when drafted in 1993. “I definitely appreciated their help. Without their assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to get him out of the car.”It took less than a minute for all four to get Puffer out of the car, Bell said. They stabilized Puffer as best they could before EMS and the Conroe Fire Department arrived.The next thing Bell knew, the three men had disappeared.“They sort of snuck out without saying anything,” Bell said.EMS transported Puffer to Conroe Regional Medical Center by EMS ambulance but was transferred Sunday to Memorial Hermann, said Cody Smith, a friend who worked with Puffer for the Katy Sting Sports Academy.Puffer, who’s gone through several surgeries since the wreck, Smith said, suffered fractures and burns. He will have to go through rehabilitation, Smith said.No citations were issued for the wreck, Conroe Police Sgt. Bob Berry said.“He (Puffer) did not appear to be speeding,” Berry said. “It appears he went to sleep.”Bell, who worked for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office for six years before joining the CPD, is also with the Army Reserves and worked in Iraq for 19 months with a private contractor, he said.Every bit of that training played into his response Saturday night.“Everything you do prepares you for something like that,” he said. “In Iraq, you were trained and you just react.”Bell already has received a sergeant’s coin – minted to give to officers for good work – and will be honored in the future by the department, Berry said.The hope is that the three men who helped Bell save Puffer’s life also will step forward.“We would like to get a hold of them,” Berry said, “and honor them as well.”Anyone with information about the identity of the three men who helped Conroe Police Officer Allan Bell pull Aaron Puffer out of the burning car Saturday night can call the Conroe Police Criminal Investigations Division at (936) 522-3231.