Retired Evanston firefighter in right place to save another

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Glenview resident and former Evanston Firefighter Dennis McGuigan was on his way to buy a lottery ticket Feb. 17 when he rescued a man from a smoking vehicle upside down on the road in Glenview. | Tamara Bell~Sun Times Media

Updated: March 24, 2012 8:48AM

Dennis “Magoo” McGuigan retired last year as an Evanston firefighter. Seems he wasn’t quite done helping people out of trouble.

As a fireman and paramedic for 30 years, he received two honorary awards for helping children in life-threatening emergencies.

At 10:30 a.m. Friday, he did it again in Glenview, where he has lived for 15 years.

Driving north on Milwaukee Avenue near Sanders Road to buy lottery tickets, ahead of him a vehicle had flipped over on its roof and the engine was smoking.

“I saw a puff of smoke and when I got there someone was still inside — a man. About five or six people were 10 feet away, just looking at the car,” said McGuigan, 55.

“The driver’s window was blown out, and his arm was hanging out of it. He was out, unconscious.

The driver was stuck in his seat because the headrest was jammed up into the roof and his legs were twisted beneath the dashboard “like a pretzel,” McGuigan recalled.

“I yelled for someone to get a fire extinguisher from my van, and I pulled the guy’s door open — 5 inches and 8 inches. They helped me open it to 12 inches.

“I thought the guy was so busted up. ‘Hey, buddy. You OK?’ He moaned and was out again,” he said.

Two men took the driver’s legs, and while McGuigan cradled his neck shoulders and head, they carried him 15 feet to roadside grass.

“I checked his airways for breathing and his arms, chest and legs for obvious injuries. He had a lacerated scalp and a leg abrasion.

“He never woke while there. He was about 40 years old,” said McGuigan, adding the car never caught fire and a Glenview ambulance soon arrived.

“From being on a lot of emergency calls during my career, you just react. People usually stand there, not knowing what to do. You get stern with them. Give them a task,” he said.

“And yes, I bought my lottery tickets,” he said. “I didn’t win anything.”

Glenview Fire Chief Wayne Globerger said the man was transported to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.

In 1984, the Evanston Firefighters Association gave McGuigan a merit award for assisting a 5-year-old boy with no pulse suffering from complications after surgery.

The Evanston Fire Department in 1999 recognized him for stabilizing another 5-year-old boy with after falling through a window pane and severing both wrist arteries.

In 2003, he was promoted to fire captain.

“I’m humbled. I’ve seen a lot of bad stuff in my career, and God put me there last week to help someone,” McGuigan said.