An Arizona man saved two toddlers from the back of a burning vehicle just moments before it exploded.
30-year-old Sam Heiler shared with Fox News that he was traveling on a remote stretch of highway in Navajo County, Arizona, on Thursday evening with his wife Melissa to head to Memorial Day weekend destination. However, their trip took an unexpected turn when they noticed the engine in the car ahead of them suddenly caught on fire. Oh no!
The two cars quickly pulled over to the side of the highway. According to Heiler, the parents of the two-year-old and three-year-old girls jumped out of the front seats of the car and shut their doors. But that turned out to be a huge mistake. Because when they closed the doors, the car instantly locked the car – meaning the pair were unable to get the kids out of the backseat! Heiler recalled:
“The parents were freaking out, screaming and punching the windows with their bare hands, both the back windows in front of the babies.”
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However, they were unable to break the glass. He continued:
“They had about 20 more seconds until the fire spread from the engine block to the cab. The girls were screaming, the parents were screaming, my wife was screaming – it was bad.”
Realizing he needed to act fast, Heiler said he picked up a rock from the side of the road and threw it at the front window, breaking the glass so the doors could open from the inside. His wife said:
“Dad followed suit, but from the panic, attempted to throw rocks at the back windows where the girls would have been covered with glass and a heavy rock had it broken through. All the while, the flames had now spread to completely covering the front hood of the car, and the two- and three-year old are screaming.”
Once the doors were opened, Melissa told the outlet her husband unbuckled the girls and helped the parents get them out of the vehicle. The group then moved to Heiler’s car. Heiler noted that “when the fire hit the fuel tank it made a legitimate fireball explosion.” Whoa! Footage captured of the scene shows the car completely engulfed in flames after the explosion. You can see it HERE.
So scary! Heiler said there was no cell service at the time, but he managed to get the attention of another driver using a glow stick he had in his car. He asked them to call 911 when he got service again – which ended up being around 25 miles down the road. Police and firefighters on the reservation arrived at the scene. Hours after the incident, fires broke out in the area that spread from the vehicle. Awful.
We’re glad that no one was hurt or worse by this situation. It must have been so, so scary for everyone involved! Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments below.
[Image via Fox News Digital]
