Monroe County sheriff's Sgt. Donnie Elomina was southbound just past the Seven Mile Bridge when something in his rearview mirror caught his eye.

"I saw something odd, then the vehicles collide, about a half-mile behind me," Elomina said of a high-profile wreck last month. "I immediately turned around, went to the scene and saw people trapped in the vehicles. That's when the smoke and flames started."

Sheriff Bob Peryam this week awarded Elomina the agency's Life Saving Award for pulling four trapped people from the fiery wreckage on Feb. 18. Elomina was the first emergency responder to the crash that killed Marathon-based Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) scientist Jeff Simonds and Washington, D.C., resident Eugenia Dixon.

Elomina was joined by motorists who stopped to help, as well as several off-duty law enforcement officers from out of state. He immediately realized the situation was dire when flames erupted from the FWC sport utility vehicle. The SUV, containing two people, and a van, also containing two people, were sandwiched close together.

"I directed some people to try to pull the man out of the FWC truck and ran back to my car to get a fire extinguisher," he said. "The man in the FWC truck was unconscious and trapped. While they were doing that, my main thought was to get the fire out. Normally, we want to keep people inside the vehicles until rescue gets there, but if there's a threat of explosion you have no other choice."

Elomina said he did his best to extinguish the fire, but only suppressed the blaze. Flames began to grow anew and he shifted attention to the two women inside the van. They were alert, scared, but calm, he said.

"The fire was right next to the van, so I first got the passenger out through a side door," Elomina said. "I got the driver out through another side door. Residents were helping me. Without those people, the situation would have been a lot worse."

Peryam was not surprised Elomina praised the good Samaritans who stopped to help.

"That's a common theme among officers such as Donnie," Peryam said. "Here's a guy that put others above his own life and pulled folks from a burning vehicle. The situation was very dangerous and he put himself in the middle of it to save others. When we're talking about dedicated law enforcement officers, it doesn't get any better than that."

Though two were killed, the number could have been higher had Elomina not been there, the sheriff said. Elizabeth Oversight, another scientist with the FWC in the SUV, and the other person in the van, Ruth Dearybury of Washington, D.C., were injured, but survived the crash.

"When you're saving someone, you don't know what the outcome will be," Peryam said. "The outcome this time was tragic, but it could have gone the other way because of his actions. There were two lives that were saved and it was because Donnie was there."

Elomina wasn't able to get the names of the people who helped him, but he said they deserve a special mention.

"There was great teamwork from everyone there," Elomina said.

alinhardt@keysnews.com