Officers Share Details of Dramatic Rescue

Barnegat police officers Lauren Keilitz and Michael Diblasi saw a halftime show like no other during the Super Bowl last Sunday: a recording of them being interviewed live on the news about their .

Both officers found themselves in a multi-day blitz of media attention after dash camera video of the Jan. 30 rescue of Mario Dischiavi went viral. The video has played on TV news shows around the country, and the officers have made two national appearances. It’s been strange, even a little unnerving, said Keilitz. But the accolades have kept coming. 

At Monday night’s Township Committee meeting, she and Diblasi accepted awards for lifesaving and meritorious service and even a special thank you from local restaurateur Jon Serpico as their fellow uniformed officers and township officials looked on.

“I can’t imagine a more fitting award for what these officers did,” said Barnegat police Chief Art Drexler on Monday.

Investigators have concluded that the fire started accidentally in the engine compartment of Dischiavi’s parked car, said Barnegat Lt. Keith Germain, and police suspect Dischiavi, who was listening to music in the car in his driveway, fell asleep and accidentally hit the gas pedal with his foot, revving his BMW’s engine until it caught fire.

Keilitz and Diblasi, both eight-year veterans of the force, were well aware they were the only two officers available when the call reporting the Biscayne Road car fire came across their radios, Germain said. Every other on-duty officer was on the scene of an arrest that had gone off the rails in the western section of the township, where a man had barricaded himself in his home with a gun. 

“They knew full well they were it,” said Lt. Keith Germain. 

Neither of the officers was expecting what they found.

“In the video, I’m walking at a quick pace, because I thought, ‘How is anybody in there?’” said Diblasi in an interview Tuesday. 

The fire was worst on the driver’s side, where tongues of flame were shooting out from beneath the BMW.

“I was thinking ‘Man, I really hope we don’t have to go over to that side, because that looks bad,’” Keilitz said.

But when the officers realized there was a man unconscious behind the wheel of the blazing car, they focused on nothing else. They knew they had to get him out.

They went for a rear passenger door first, because it was the nearest thing that wasn’t actively in flames. But the door they needed to get open – the driver’s side door – was locked. Immediately, Diblasi raced for his squad car to get a window punch, knowing that was their best bet.

“We knew we had one chance to get him out,” said Diblasi. “By the time I did that, she’s yelling, ‘He’s coming to!’” 

They’re not sure exactly what happened next. Dischiavi might have managed to unlock the car door, or the powerful flames that had just silenced the blaring radio might have also disabled the lock mechanism. But Keilitz was able to get the door open before Diblasi returned with the punch. 

“I remember seeing his jacket and grabbing him and saying, ‘Let’s get away from this car,’ ” Keilitz said.

Both officers pointed to lucky circumstances that they said helped them and Dischiavi escape unharmed. An alarm call had brought them to Route 9 just before the car fire was reported, so they were close by. Had they been even minutes further away, police said, the story would have ended differently.

“He didn’t have 60 seconds,” said Germain. Keilitz agreed. “We would have definitely gotten hurt just trying to get him out of the car,” she said.

It was fortunate too, said Diblasi, that the fire was coming from the engine and beneath the car and hadn’t penetrated the driver compartment.

But Germain said what made the difference was the officers’ response. They did exactly what they’d been trained to do, without hesitating or questioning their actions.

“We say, ‘Always do it the right way, because then you don’t have to think about it,’” said Germain. "We know when the adrenaline gets up that logic, physiologically, is one of the first things to go out the window. You’re going to react based on the training you’ve laid in there over the years. Whether you realize it or not, you’re always training for that.”

And that’s exactly what happened, the officers said. Neither remembers going over procedures in their heads, they said, and yet they did everything by the book, right down to keeping their cars at a distance that would allow fire trucks to pull in.

“There are a lot of things you aren’t thinking about, but it kicks in anyway,” Keilitz said.

Diblasi said there was never any question about how they’d respond.

“We just did what anybody would have done,” he said.