MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A man was rescued from a burning pickup truck Wednesday afternoon on Interstate 95 by a Good Samaritan with an iPhone in hand.
The heroic display went down in the northbound lanes of I-95 just south of the Dolphin Expressway.
Jim Angulo said he saw the flames and smoke from his driver’s side window, and noticed a man struggling to get out of the burning truck.
“That’s when I realized, ‘Oh my god, he can’t get out,’” Angulo said.
He said his instinct was to record the fiery scene on his cellphone and jump in to help.
“I started screaming at the guy who had just kicked out the window, ‘Get out, get out!’ And he screamed in Spanish, ‘I can’t. I can’t!’” Angulo recalled. “When I jumped out, the guy next to me, he jumped out also, and we just grabbed him and pulled him out.”
Witnesses said it all started when the man’s work pickup collided with an SUV while traveling on the busy interstate.
The man in the pickup truck, who has not yet been identified, was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital. Angulo said he was conscious and alert, but had some burns on his legs.
“At that moment, you don’t think. You just try to do the right thing,” Angulo said.