iStock/NadejdaReidBy: EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News
(NEW YORK) — When a Pennsylvania police officer crashed his patrol car on the way to a call, a bystander stepped in to save him, authorities said.
The fiery, two-car accident took place on Sunday in Uniontown, about 45 miles south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Robert Broadwater told ABC News.
Daylan McLee was at his dad’s house for Father’s Day when he heard a “big boom” and people screaming, he told ABC News.
That’s when McLee jumped into action, Broadwater said.
McLee went outside to find a Uniontown police officer pinned inside his car behind a door that wouldn’t open, he said.
McLee said he could smell the fumes and feel the heat — and that’s when the front of the car became “engulfed in flames.”
McLee said he pulled the door open and dragged the officer away from the burning car.
“I don’t know where I mustered the strength,” he said. “My heart was beating, I was scared to death thinking we were gonna blow up. But something in me wouldn’t let me leave him.”
The officer hurt his leg, Broadwater said, but neither the officer’s injuries nor the second driver’s injuries were life threatening.
“I don’t know how anybody walked out alive,” McLee said.
To McLee, this close-call should serve as a lesson.
“I just think this is a lesson that no matter what we’re going through with the police brutality or with the people brutality on police, whichever way it goes, this is the way things should be handled and this is the love we should give and help our community as civilians,” he said.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation, Broadwater said. The Uniontown Police Department declined to comment.
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