Tom Gillan headed home to Long Beach with his family on a Sunday evening two weeks ago, after spending a nice afternoon in Manhattan with his wife and three children, he said. Gillan, a retired New York City police officer, drove east on Park Avenue toward Long Beach Road in their Chevy Tahoe, past bustling restaurants and people out enjoying a clear night on Labor Day weekend.
Allison Geller was one of those people, waiting for her husband, Lt. Mike Geller of the Long Beach Fire Department's Engine Co. 3. Her extended family had gathered for dinner at Kawasaki Japanese Steak House, and Mike was a few minutes away. At about 6:30, Geller had just parked her car on East Park and gotten out when she suddenly saw a car speeding east with no signs of slowing down.
Gillan, 39, was driving in the center lane when, out of nowhere, he said, the car barreled into his SUV from behind. The impact, he said, lifted the larger vehicle into the air and the car, a silver Kia sedan that witnesses said was occupied by three passengers, became wedged underneath the SUV.
Gillan immediately checked to see if his wife and children were OK, and then he saw flames beginning to spread from the rear of the vehicle. "I knew the second the car hit that [the Kia] went up in flames," he said later. "I was looking at my driver-side mirror, and I could see the flames coming through my back door."
Bystanders rushed to help the Gillans get their children out of the SUV as the flames spread. The occupants of the Kia, police and witnesses said, fled the scene.
Gillan moved quickly to rescue his wife and kids. Jonathan, 10, was asleep in the back on the driver's side, 8-year-old Thomas was on the passenger side and Josh, 22 months old, was in the center, buckled into the baby seat. Seeing the fire, Gillan said, he was terrified.
"I yelled, 'Get out!'" he recounted. "My wife got out and yelled for the baby."
Those first few seconds seemed like a lifetime, he said. The heat and the flames intensified, and were close to igniting the gas tank. "When I saw the flames, I thought, oh, man," said Gillan, who, nine years ago, entered the north tower of the World Trade Center as the south tower crumbled. "It was not easy unbuckling the kids."
