Kosher Diner Owners Play Hero on Chicago Highway
Brothers Ken and Daniel Hechtman, owners of a kosher diner, helped saved several people from a fiery wreck in suburban Chicago.
While driving back Sunday night from their kosher diner in Skokie, a semi-truck in front of them on the Edens Expressway in Northfield swerved into another car, causing an explosion.
Daniel Hechtman, 54, ran to the truck and pulled a passenger from the truck. Ken Hechtman, 60, pulled a mother and her 10-year-old daughter from the car, which was under the truck. Both sustainted more serious injuries and burns.
“I heard the screaming and there was nothing else in my mind (but) to run toward the voices,” Ken Hechtman told the Chicago Tribune. “There was no time to think. It’s adrenaline. It’s all adrenaline.”
The Jewish brothers, who were uninjured, are co-owners of Ken’s Diner. They are being called heroes.
Ken Hechtman said he doesn’t consider himself a hero and that everything happened so fast.
“Everyone keeps talking about ‘Hero, hero, hero,’ ” he told the Tribune. “Now that I think about it, it was stupid. Who runs toward a flaming truck that’s exploding?”
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO