Here’s the story from fredricksburg.com:

A tow truck driver with Anytime Towing in Ladysmith was honored tonight with the Life Saving Award for his heroic actions that saved two lives on Halloween morning.

Sheriff Tony Lippa presented T.K. Loving, 36, of Hanover, with the award during a dinner at Timbers Restaurant.

Sheriff Tony Lippa and Major Scott Moser present T.K. Loving with the Life Saver Award Wednesday night.

Lippa, who said he is a former tow truck driver, said he knows the dangers of that job and thanked Loving for his heroic actions that not only saved his own life, but the life of someone else.

Loving was responding to a AAA call around 4:3o a.m. on Oct. 31 to tow a vehicle that had broken down on I-95, halfway between the Ladysmith and Thornburg exits.

That’s when a vehicle drove off the main road and struck Loving  and the customer he was helping as they stood on the northbound shoulder.

The crash left Loving and Robyn Silcox, 20, of Stafford with serious injuries. The driver of the vehicle drove off.

Silcox, a 2008 Stafford High School graduate and a junior at Old Dominion University, is recovering from serious injuries to her hand and arm and has more surgery planned.

She credited Loving with spotting the oncoming vehicle before it hit them, managing to mostly push her out of its path and saving her life.

In an earlier interview with the Free Lance-Star, Loving said he reacted as anyone would, and gave the credit to the rumble strips.

“I heard the rumble strips. The rumble strips pretty much saved me and her,” Loving said.

When he heard tires crossing over the strips, embedded in the pavement to alert drivers they are straying from the road, “I looked up, saw headlights, and grabbed her,” Loving said.

The impact shattered Loving’s right ankle and tore his Achilles tendon. He is not allowed to put any weight on his foot, and is using crutches. He will need surgery and physical therapy.

Loving has been a tow- truck driver for Anytime Towing for three years, and said most of his work is on I-95. Until that day, he’d never had a close call with passing traffic.

When he responded to Silcox’s call, Loving said he parked his tow truck on the grass, putting the entire northbound shoulder between him and the right travel lane of I-95.

“It’s not like I was close,” Loving said.

He suspects the driver may have mistaken the shoulder for a travel lane.

Loving will receive worker’s compensation for a portion of his salary, but said he could be out of work for six months. Loving’s wife is a stay-at-home mother to their four children, including a 4-month-old.

“It’s going to be a struggle. I’ll have to figure something out,” Loving said.

The driver of the dark blue 2008 Chevrolet Cobalt or Pontiac G5  fled the scene without stopping, and has yet to be located.

Anyone with information about the crash or vehicle is asked to call the Virginia State Police Area 44 Office in Caroline County at 804/633-6799 or e-mail the office at area44@vsp.virginia.gov.

From Footnotes TowBlog: Towing News Around The Web (www.thetowblog.com)
Posted by Cyndi Kight, Associate Editor of Towing and Recovery Footnotes

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GRUNDY, Va. — Alan Coleman was working under a truck at Kenny’s Towing when he saw her: a toddler standing near the Coke machine, and apparently alone.

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Worried about her safety, Coleman, who is 17, approached the little girl to ask where her family was. It was 5:30 p.m. Tuesday and there didn’t seem to be any adults with her. But as Coleman approached, 2-year-old Brenda Leeann Thacker darted across U.S. 460, apparently for the second time.

She was headed toward home on the other side of the highway, but the oncoming traffic was closing fast. And Coleman, seeing the danger, dashed after her.

Before he could reach the toddler she was hit twice by two different trucks – one passed over her completely after knocking her to the pavement. A second rolled over her left leg. When Coleman finally was able to pull the child into his arms, both were hit by another vehicle.

“I was just trying to get to her before a vehicle got to her,” Coleman said later.

Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, but Brenda suffered several broken bones and was hospitalized for a while. She’s now in a cast from the chest down and must return to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville every 10 days until the cast comes off in July, said her parents, Curtis “Bo” Thacker and Jessica Lowe.

Thacker said the UT physicians were astonished that Brenda survived being hit by two vehicles, but they predict she will heal without any lasting damage.

Thacker and Lowe were at their daughter’s side immediately after Coleman pulled her to safety. Thacker said people who saw the incident told him his daughter would have been crushed if Coleman had not pulled her out of the way at the very instant he did.

Brenda had been in her backyard with her mother and two siblings when the phone rang that afternoon. Mom was inside for only a minute, but when she returned Brenda was gone. Thacker was working less than a mile away at the Grundy radio station office of WMJD.

The toddler picked that moment to try to cross the busy roadway alone, a feat her family says she had never before attempted. She rounded the house to cross the few feet of road between her home and the service station.

Not long after, Coleman spotted her at the Coke machine.

“I was worried that she might take off,” he said.

When she did, he said, he followed without thought.

She was just a few feet from Coleman’s outreached hands when the first truck, traveling westbound, hit her. Coleman said he watched helplessly as the big truck hit the tiny child then continue on, straddling the toddler. As he continued to move toward her, another car hit him.

“I didn’t see what hit me,” he said, explaining that he was knocked backwards perhaps a dozen feet toward the building by the impact. It didn’t slow him down.

Coleman bounded back after the child, was lying in roadway nearest Kenny’s Towing. As the determined young man reached the injured girl, he was hit again.

“I think it was the same truck that ran over her,” Coleman said of the second impact for them both.

This time, Brenda’s left leg was run over by both the front and back tires of the truck, he said.

Coleman then was able to grab the child by her sides and pull her to safety. That’s when he was hit for the third time, with Brenda still in his arms, he said.

“The next thing I remember, I was laying on the ground holding her,” Coleman said. The dazed young man called 911 from his cell phone and waited on help to arrive.

“She took her little fingers and grabbed my hand,” Coleman said. “She rolled her head against me and held on till the ambulance got there.”

By then Thacker and Lowe had arrived and they asked their daughter why she had crossed the busy road. She gave her parents a one-word explanation: “pop.”

Thacker said they had taken her across the road to get a drink at Kenny’s service station recently and he believes she just wanted to get a Coke from the newly installed vending machine.

Brenda was transported by Mercy Ambulance Service to Riverview Elementary Middle School, where she was air-lifted to Holston Valley Medical Center. Both the upper and lower portions of the child’s leg were broken by the truck and she suffered a cracked pelvis and a torn muscle in her upper leg.

While on their way to the medical center, Thacker said, they were notified by cell phone that she needed to be transported to the UT Medical Center because Holston did not have the proper equipment to treat her.

Coleman suffered bumps and bruises, but no serious injuries and was not hospitalized.

But, Thacker said, Coleman took the brunt of the impact of that last collision, and that likely saved his child’s life. He and Lowe said they’re both very grateful for what Coleman did, adding that he possesses the bravery and ability to act that makes a man a hero.

An assistance fund has been set up for the family to help pay for the child’s medical expenses. Donations can be made at the Grundy National Bank in the name of Curtis Thacker, at P.O. Box 471, Grundy, Va.

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