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Apr 8, 2008 12:03 PM

Richard Filiczkowski, a driver for C R England, has received the Goodyear North American Highway Hero Award for risking his life to save the life of a nine-year-old girl, according to Goodyear information.

Filiczkowski and his wife saw the car in which the girl was a passenger with her father careen off the road and plunge into an icy South Dakota pond. He jumped into the pond to try to save the girl and her father, who were trapped in the car. Filiczkowski was able to save the girl, but her father's legs were lodged under the steering column and he died in the accident.

Other Hero Award finalists included a tanker driver, David Virgoe, a driver for Wilburn Archer Trucking, who was honored posthumously as a finalist after he swerved his vehicle to avoid three street-racing cars, slammed into the median guardrail, and veered off the highway to avoid colliding with oncoming traffic. He died in the accident.

Other finalists were Rick Tower, a driver for Earl Bryant Trucking, who rescued an 82-year-old woman from her sinking car after it left the roadway and landed in a swift river, and Ronnie Greene, a driver for A Passmore and Sons. Greene rescued a pregnant woman from a brutal attack after she was run over by her boyfriend’s truck.