Father, sons recognized for life-saving actions by McHenry County Board

When Joseph “Jay” Wolf came upon a crash Oct. 30 on Route 14 outside of Harvard, he wasn’t sure if if it was his military training or years as a volunteer with his sons’ Boy Scout troop that kicked in.

“I guess it was some of both,” Wolf said Tuesday as his family was among those recognized for preventing a larger tragedy that day.

On Tuesday, the McHenry County Board recognized Wolf, his sons Shane and Joey, and McHenry County Division of Transportation employee Brian Busse and his wife, Hillary, for their quick thinking after coming upon the crash that day.

Jay Wolf and his two sons were on their way back from a Scout camping trip just after noon that day, following a second vehicle towing a trailer. The driver ahead of them – another Scout leader – suddenly came to nearly a full stop.

Then, Jay saw what caused her to stop. Ahead of them, a car was flipped on its side on the road and was on fire.

He gunned his Ford Explorer ahead to get closer to the car, climbed on top of it and began trying to break the glass. His son, Joey, ran up with his own glass breaking tool, and Shane was close behind with the EMT kit his father keeps in the truck.

Jay was able to get the car’s door open but was unable to cut the woman out of her seat belt.

Another man who Jay did not know ran up too. Between the two of them, they were able to lift her up enough to release the seat belt and get her out of the car. Not long after they were able to get her out of the car, the entire passenger cabin was on fire.

“It totally went up. We had just seconds to spare,” Jay said.

Once the woman was out of the car, Jay ran across the street to the second car in the crash. That vehicle held an older man.

“He was out of it,” Jay said of the second driver. When rescue crews arrived, he had to be cut out of the car.

It wasn’t until he watched the dash camera footage from his vehicle later that he realized how dire the situation was.

“I was paying more attention to getting her out” and not the flames next to him, Jay said.

What surprised them later, Joey Wolf said, was how calm everyone was, he and his brother included. “We were next to a car with flaming wheels” and focused on getting the victim out, he said.

Their mother, Lisa, was not with them on the camping trip. She just knew they were late coming home until Jay called to tell her everything was OK.

Seeing the video scared her, Lisa said. “At the same time, I was proud that they jumped in to help. They did what they had to do to help someone, and that is what we have taught them, knowing right from wrong,”

This is not the first time Jay has jumped in and helped in a crash. In the 1990s, driving back from a holiday party, he came upon a crash on Des Plaines River Road. He popped out the glass and pulled a man from that collision too, Jay said.

There were other lessons to be learned since that day, Jay said. He bought a better, heavy-duty glass breaking tool with a built-in seat belt cutter.