WYOMING — Carson Crossley was tired. He had spent the afternoon of the Fourth of July with his best friend Joey Kolesar, Joey’s father Joseph, and two other children at Ricketts Glen State Park.
As Joseph drove the group to Carson’s Wyoming home for a holiday barbecue, the 11-year-old began to dose off. Around 5:30 p.m., something startled Carson awake.
“I was actually very tired that day, so I had my eyes closed. Then, all of a sudden I felt the car and I saw the cop,” Carson said about a Wyoming Borough police officer who witnessed Kolesar’s car spin out of control. “I thought he was pulling over for the cop, but then we started going up on the sidewalk.”
Carson was sitting in the front seat of Joseph’s vehicle as he was the driest of the four children, a recent ear surgery keeping him out of the water at Ricketts Glen. After Joseph’s car drove onto the sidewalk, sheared a pole at the corner of Ninth Street and Wyoming Avenue and continued to accelerate, Carson used his positioning to take control of the situation.
The initial collision caused the front passenger airbag to deploy so Carson shielded himself from the airbag with his right hand and steered the vehicle with his left. In an effort to avoid oncoming traffic on a busy four-lane road, Carson guided the vehicle into a residence at 394 Wyoming Ave. — approximately two blocks from his home.
Carson, Joey and two friends escaped the crash with minor injuries (Carson had a bloody nose and will undergo therapy for minor muscular injuries), but Joseph was taken away by ambulance. Carson said Joseph had complained of heartburn at Ricketts Glen and began to feel worse as the day went on. When Carson learned Joseph had suffered a heart attack and passed away, he was “very emotional.”
“At first, all I was worried about was getting out of there and being safe, but then I realized he had a heart attack and passed out,” Carson said. “I was very scared. His son and I, when we got the news, it was very sad.”
‘Like a second dad’
Carson’s mother, Debbie Burchell Crossley, said Joseph embraced his son’s best friend since the two boys met in first grade.
“Joe was like a second dad to him,” Debbie said. “They did everything together.”
Carson said he spent a lot of time at Joseph’s Luzerne restaurant, Salerno’s.
“We always used to go to the movies together after the restaurant closed,” Carson said. “He taught me how to cook and about cars, because he has a rare Super Bee and an old GTO, an old Mustang, all that stuff.”
Carson used the skills he learned at Salerno’s to make cookies for the residents at 394 Wyoming Ave., Dave and Nancy Shemo, because he felt bad for crashing into their home.
“I didn’t know where they came from because there was no note,” Dave said. “We thought maybe someone left them here by accident, one of our guests or something.”
Dave and Nancy hosted guests in their backyard on July 4. Dave didn’t know a vehicle struck the front-right portion of his home until a neighbor came to give him the news. He isn’t sure how much it will cost to repair the home — structural engineers and contractors are still assessing the damage — but the couple stressed that their home is repairable and Carson’s actions averted a possible disaster at the busy nearby intersection of Eighth Street and Wyoming Avenue.
“While we were standing here, he kept apologizing again and again to my sister for hitting the house,” Nancy said, recalling the events of July 4. “With all of this going on, we said, ‘That’s so secondary. What you did, you saved everyone.’ It shows what kind of kid he is.”
Called a hero
Debbie said she wasn’t surprised to learn her son guided Joseph’s vehicle to safety.
“He’s very calm,” Debbie said. “If somebody gets injured or cut, he’s a very calm presence.”
Carson’s calm allowed him to recall what it was like driving the dune buggy he received last Christmas. It has a steering wheel similar to the ones found on automobiles, so Carson drew on that experience while taking control of Joseph’s vehicle.
After the crash, Carson’s primary concern was the safety of the vehicle’s occupants.
Carson’s brother Bret Davis, 25, said his little brother has always had the same “wherewithal and state of mind.”
“He told me that, even though he was scared, after the car actually crashed and came to a stop, there was dust from the airbags and his first immediate thought was, ‘Everybody needs to get out because the car’s on fire,’” Bret said.
Bret, who is training to be a police officer, gave his brother’s emergency response skill set high marks.
“Second to none, 20-out-of-10, that’s unbelievable to do,” Bret said. “I was terrified because of what happened, but at the same time, when I found out what happened, if anybody’s going to do that, it’s Carson.”
