By Jennifer Toland - Worcester Telegram & Gazette
jtoland@telegram.com

WPI sophomore running back Ernie Mello was just hanging out with friends near Stoddard Hall that night last spring when a horrific noise interrupted their wee-hour gathering.

"I heard a crash, a very loud crash," Mello recalled this week.

He bolted from the dormitory, looked down Institute Road, and then his instincts took over.

"I ran from Stoddard," Mello said, "and I never stopped."

At the bottom of the street, at the intersection of Park Avenue, a car was engulfed in flames, and the driver was trapped inside.

"It was a crazy scene," Mello said. "As I got closer, I wanted to see if I could help her out of the car."

The driver's side door was jammed, Mello said, so "someone, I don't know who it was" cracked the driver's side window open. Mello and classmate Matt Zubiel, who is a volunteer firefighter in his home state of Colorado, pulled 61-year-old Arsine Sahverdiyan of Worcester to safety. According to reports, Sahverdiyan's car allegedly had been rear-ended by a drunk driver while she was stopped at a red light.

"We grabbed her legs and shimmied her out the window," Mello said. "She was screaming and badly burned. We carried her to the side of the road and sat with her until the ambulance came."

Mello kind of gave real meaning to the term "football hero."

"It was dangerous, but I couldn't just sit there and not do something," he said.

Mello met with Sahverdiyan's family shortly after the accident and has kept in touch with her son, Vartan. They have spoken on the phone and are Facebook friends.

"If not for Ernie's and Matt's efforts, my mom would not be alive," Vartan Sahverdiyan said. "We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude. They put their own lives at risk to save her. They are true heroes."

Vartan said his mother is doing pretty well.

Mello has not seen or spoken to Mrs. Sahverdiyan since the accident, but an on-campus reunion is being planned, Mello said, at the end of football season.

Story appeared in Worcester  Telegram and Gazette - Friday, October 30th
http://www.telegram.com/article/20091030/COLUMN11/910300466