HOOKSETT — Kristi Smith-Perry didn't expect to be doing anything that could be labeled heroic one evening last June 11.

Smith-Perry said she was watching television with her children in Hooksett when she heard a loud noise outside about 10:30 p.m.

“It was just so loud that I knew it was going to be bad,” Smith-Perry said.

She said there had been accidents at that spot on the Londonderry Turnpike before.

Running down the driveway to see what had happened, she saw that a Volvo had crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer.

The Volvo driver, 43-year-old Douglas Hadlock of Manchester, was trapped in the car, which seemed moments away from being engulfed in flames.

“I ran up to the car and saw him in there and tried to shake him because the car was on fire,” Smith-Perry said. “I was telling him to, ‘Get up, get up,' but I couldn't do it alone. I couldn't get him out by myself.”

With the help of the tractor-trailer driver, Pierre Casavant of Quebec, and a passer-by, Smith-Perry was able to get Hadlock out of the car. Hadlock suffered non-life threatening injuries, but lost a substantial amount of blood.

Soon after Hadlock was out of the Volvo, the car became a fireball.

He was taken to Elliot Hospital and then airlifted to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

For her actions, Smith-Perry is being presented with a Union Leader Hero Award.