Not without my brother.
That's what Marisa Lesko shouted as Michigan State Trooper Harry Norman struggled to free the 3-year-old while her older brother was also trapped inside their burning car in Livonia nearly 40 years ago.
Miraculously, Norman complied, extracting both young children at once before they all tumbled back into the wintry mix covering the busy freeway.
"I still remember the cold slush on my back and legs," Norman recalled Sunday. "My face and hands were burned."
Norman pieced together his memories of the daring rescue for the first time before nearly all of the survivors - mother Alicia Van Pelt, son Andy Lesko, sister Marisa, (now Marisa Downs) and brother William - at a reunion brunch at the Detroit Yacht Club on Belle Isle. A fourth sibling was unable to make the occasion.
It was an intimate, heartfelt event to honor Norman, who arrived from western Michigan with his wife, his daughter and her fiancee. Van Pelt organized the day, hosting the group of families for a buffet meal alongside the Detroit River before a cruise on her 42-foot, 1977 Grand Banks trawler.
The near-fatal accident has become family lore, but Van Pelt said family members rarely speak in detail of what happened. Instead, many of them said in interviews they have privately ruminated about how easily the accident could have turned deadly.
What if Norman and his partner had not pulled over a different driver nearby shortly before the crash? What if Norman's partner had not tackled the burning Van Pelt while flames spread quickly down her back? What if Andy's feet had not slipped out of his crushed Moon Boots, which had been pinning him in the back seat?
It was a Saturday night in February 1980 when 24-year-old Norman and his 22-year-old partner Mike Oliver were paroling on the Jeffries Freeway. The pair were out looking for an outlawed motorcycle gang and then pulled over an older couple during a traffic stop.
Oliver spotted Van Pelt's Plymouth Volare parked on the left side of the road about 100 yards away. The car had had a flat on its way into Detroit. Van Pelt and her children hoped to visit a family friend teaching at Wayne State University.
As the troopers approached Van Pelt and her kids, the situation suddenly got much worse. Another vehicle rear-ended the Volare, setting off the fire.
Norman said in an interview he had seen this kind of incendiary collision before. It had been made infamous by a numbers of accidents connected to Ford Pintos in the 1970s and it often ended tragically.
"The people inside were incinerated," he said.
Molly Lesko, Anika Lesko, Mariana Downs and Cameron Downs listen to retired Michigan State Trooper Harry Norman recount the day he saved their parents from a burning car in February 1980 at the Detroit Yacht Club. (Photo: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press)
This time, however, Van Pelt had escaped but was unable to free all of her children. The mother returned to the burning car, but retreated when she caught fire herself.
Oliver then tackled Van Pelt to smother the flames lighting up her hair and crawling down her back. William and John had also escaped but Andy, 9, and Marisa were still trapped in the back of the car when Norman flung into action.
Marisa pleaded with Norman to save her brother, whose puffy "moon" winter boots had pinned him down by the crumpled front seat.
In one fell swoop, the trooper scooped up both of them together and pulled and pulled. Then another driver who had stopped to help pulled on Norman's back to add more weight. The children flung free.
Andy and his mother suffered from the greatest physical injuries with up to third-degree burns. But each of them said they eventually recovered with no permanent disability or substantial visible scarring. Norman said he never saw the family again until Sunday.
The reunion came together using a mix of archives and modern technology.
A neighbor of the family had saved a Free Press newspaper clip of the rescue story. Marisa got the clip when she and her family bought her mother's former home in Plymouthand the neighbor stopped by, clip in hand. The family had always talked about a possible reunion, but it never seemed to come together.
Andy then revived the search for Norman and Oliver, who had passed away, through a Facebook-led crowd search. Eventually, through friends connected to state police, Andy tracked down Norman to set up Sunday's celebration.
Andy Lesko and his daughter Maggie Lesko look at old cards and newspaper clippings with retired Michigan State Trooper Harry Norman, who rescued the Lesko family from a burning car in February 1980, at the Detroit Yacht Club, Sunday, July 29, 2018. (Photo: Kathleen Galligan, Detroit Free Press)
"Of course I knew who they were," Norman said, recalling Andy's initial call. "They changed my life profoundly."
Norman's bravery in the rescue helped him secure a sought-after transfer to a post in northern Michigan, he said. He eventually left the state police after 26 years and works as a contractor for the U.S. Marshall Service from his home in northwestern Michigan.
The wounds have healed, the scars all but disappeared. But for years, according to her children, Van Pelt avoided highways that might remind her of the accident.
Van Pelt said it has been a difficult legacy to live with, the thought that she came close to losing her children. Sunday's reunion offered a balm of sorts, she said.
Norman pulled out a folder of clips and other papers he had saved from his career. Among them was a hand-written thank you note from Van Pelt.
"Oh, I did write something," she said, as she leaned in to see what Norman had saved for nearly four decades. "I'm so glad."
Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @matthewsdolan
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