'Everything was on fire'

With Carl Kauppila set to tie the knot Saturday, the old gang from Michigan's Upper Peninsula thought it might be fun to head to downtown Minneapolis Thursday night for photos at the Stone Arch Bridge.

But the only pictures taken of them, dazed and shirtless, occurred after they risked their lives to wrest a 22-year-old man from a blazing car they had watched careen off Interstate 394 and crash near a Minnetonka frontage road. They said they had seen the interior of the car afire when it sped past earlier.

"His whole body was covered in flames. It just seemed like everything was on fire. The [car] trim, the headliner, all was in flames," said Jared Bekkala, 26, an auto body technician who works in Hopkins.

The victim, from Bloomington, was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center with severe burns characterized as life-threatening, said Lt. Eric Roeske of the State Patrol. His name was not released because he's under investigation by Minneapolis and Bloomington police.

At the time of the crash, the man was the subject of an alert put out by Bloomington police for probable cause hit-and-run and assault, Cmdr. Mark Stehlik said.

Earlier Thursday evening, the man's ex-girlfriend told Bloomington police he rear-ended her vehicle as she and a friend moved out of their apartment. She told police that after they stepped out of their car, the man turned his car around and sped toward them before driving off.

The evening was not exactly what the four Kauppila brothers, cousin Chase Riutta, 26, of Missoula, Mont., and friends Bekkala and Dennis Juopperi, 28, of Wayzata, had envisioned.

The seven dropped off their tuxes at the hotel and piled into two cars about 10 p.m. and headed downtown. As they entered I-394 they spotted a car "doing about 100 or so" in the HOV lane, Bekkala said. Then they saw the interior of the speeding car was in flames.

They watched the car swerve right, cross lanes of traffic, hit a curb, fly over a chain-link fence and land in a cloud of dust and smoke.

They pulled off the freeway and Bekkala, Riutta and Jake Kauppila, 27, of Salt Lake City, jumped the fence and raced to the burning car.

The doors were locked and the windows up. Kauppila kicked in the driver's window with his boots and Bekkala reached inside to open the car door. The driver was pinned under the steering wheel, gesturing for help.

"He would stick his arm out and we were trying to grab anything we could get," Bekkala said. "It looked like his flesh was falling off. There was stuff dripping and melting everywhere.

"It was like something in a horror movie."

The three finally pulled him free and dragged him away from the car. They briefly rolled him in grass and then used their shirts, which they had taken off, to put out the flames. By then, crews were responding to Carl Kauppila's and Juopperi's 911 call.

Bekkala and Jake Kauppila, slightly singed, inhaled some smoke and were given oxygen. The group returned to their hotel, showered and then went to Perkins for a 2 a.m. meal.

Carl Kauppila, 25, a mechanical engineer from Cottage Grove, said they had two choices. "We could have just stood back and kept safe," he said, "or run and help the guy."

It was simple, Bekkala said. "We've got to get this guy out of there," he said. "We couldn't have lived with that guy dying in that car with us standing there."

Kevin Duchschere • 612-673-4455