‘Nothing short of heroic’: KS trooper credits bystander with saving three children

A 31-year-old woman died in a crash Monday outside of Emporia, but her three children survived thanks to a bystander pulling them from the burning SUV, Kansas Highway Patrol Capt. John Lehnherr said Tuesday.

“I would say his actions are nothing short of heroic,” Lehnherr said. “No doubt about it, he saved three kids’ lives yesterday.” The man was not publicly identified.

The accident happened on the Kansas Turnpike just north of Emporia. Sacha McNack of Oklahoma City died in the burning vehicle. Her children were all injured in the crash — two were flown to different hospitals. But it could have been much worse for them, according to Lehnherr.

It’s unclear what caused the crash. One driver said McNack passed him then slowed down and passed him again, but he didn’t think anything of it at the time, Lehnherr said.

McNack was headed north on I-335 in a 2006 Cadillac SRX when she went onto the right shoulder, overcorrected, went into the east ditch and struck a tree, a trooper wrote in the KHP crash log. The SUV caught fire.

A bystander, who was a former medic in the military, stopped and quickly began to remove the children from the burning vehicle, Lehnherr said. A trooper arrived as the bystander freed the last child from the vehicle and they both went to get the mother, but flames had overtaken the vehicle by then, he said.

A 8-year-old boy was flown to Children’s Mercy Kansas City and a 6-year-old girl was flown to Wesley Medical Center. Both had critical injuries, he said. A 2-year-old boy, who had serious but non-life-threatening injuries, was taken to Newman Regional Health, likely by vehicle, he said.

All are expected to survive.

Lehnherr said troopers don’t know where they were headed. People on Facebook posted about McNack as a poet. One person said she could “rhyme words as fast as she spoke.”

Another person said: “She wanted (to) start a new life but God had other plans.”

This story was originally published June 7, 2022 at 2:57 PM.