Students recognized for saving woman's life

For two Grand Valley State University students, an uneventful drive to Chick-fil-A quickly turned into an effort to save a woman's life. 

On January 20, 2017, Trevor Fairfield and Jarret Basset, both first-year students and roommates, were traveling along Lake Michigan Drive in Standale when they witnessed a head-on crash between two vehicles that trapped one woman in her burning car. The students pulled over and rushed to pry the car door open and pull the woman from the flames — an act authorities said saved her life.

Fairfield, a business major from Holland, and Basset, a nursing major from Muskegon, were honored for their effort March 23 at a Student Senate meeting in the Kirkhof Center. Grand Valley President Thomas J. Haas and Student Senate President Ella Fritzemeier presented the students with an award. 

Fairfield, who was recovering from shoulder surgery he received three weeks before the incident, said flames coming from the car engine were more than five feet tall. 

"Most people were running away from the car, but my first instinct was to run toward it and help the driver," he said.

Fairfield pulled the woman out of the car by her shoulders while Basset supported her legs. The woman was transported to the hospital where she suffered non-life threatening injuries. 

"A fireman later told us that we saved her life," Fairfield said. "I would do it all over again, even if it meant that I would retear the muscle in my shoulder." 

During the meeting, student senators voted to pass a resolution to recognize Fairfield and Basset. 

"What Trevor and Jarret did was truly an act of heroism," Fritzemeier said. "We want to do our best to recognize them in a way that would go down in the history of Grand Valley."