Brave Trooper Honored

Trooper Ryan Brill­hart of the Spe­cial Response Team has been hon­ored for his brave actions that saved the life of a man from a burn­ing vehi­cle. He was pre­sented with the high­est form of honor, the pres­ti­gious Superintendent’s Cita­tion of Merit Award, at the High­way Patrol’s Acad­emy by Colonel Paul Pride, Patrol super­in­ten­dent. On March 17th, Trooper Brill­hart wit­nessed a crash on inter­state 75. He quickly approached the pas­sen­ger side of the vehi­cle, which had come to rest on its roof with smoke pour­ing from the engine com­part­ment, and checked on the dri­ver. Receiv­ing no response and notic­ing flames in the engine com­part­ment, Trooper Brill­hart grabbed his fire extin­guisher and tried to use it on the fire, but it had lit­tle effect. Dam­age to the roof pre­vented him from get­ting the pas­sen­ger door open, but he con­tin­ued call­ing to the occu­pant until he finally heard a response. Trooper Brill­hart then pried the door away from the frame, and crawled inside the burn­ing vehi­cle, where he found the dri­ver pinned upside down in his seat. He used his pocket knife to cut through the seat­belt and pull the vic­tim out. Trooper Brill­hart was assigned to the Swan­ton Post at one time. In 2013, he trans­ferred to his most recent assign­ment on the Spe­cial Response Team.