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‘Instinct, training began’: Off-duty Connecticut firefighter saves badly injured woman from burning car just as flames engulfed passenger seat
- An off-duty firefighter was rescuing a woman on his way home from duty when he saw a burning car
- Nicholas Perri Jr., a firefighter from White Plains, New York, pulled an injured driver from the fiery wreckage of one car last weekend
- Local firefighters said Perri’s actions kept the driver from burning to death
An off-duty firefighter heroically saved the life of a woman who was injured in a car accident and “would have been burned” had the man not acted.
Nicholas Perri Jr., a New York firefighter, pulled the woman out of her car over the weekend on Saturday without the aid of protective gear or a hose, officials said.
The incident happened around 3:15 a.m. in Brookfield, Connecticut, as Perri was driving home from his own shift with the White Plains Fire Department.
Perri stumbled upon a one-sided car wreck and found the woman inside, incapacitated.
“Instinct, training kicked in and ran in and did my best to get her out,” Perri said in an interview after saving.
This is the woman’s car after firefighters put out the fire caused by the single vehicle wreck
Nicholas Perri Jr. is a firefighter with the White Plains Fire Department. He was driving home from work when he came across the car
Dash cam footage from the night of the incident shows the moments when the man brought the woman to safety
The off-duty firefighter pulled the woman out of the car as flames reached the passenger side of the vehicle
The man himself came dangerously close to the fire because he even burned an article of clothing, a statement from the Brookfield Volunteer Fire Company said.
“The jacket he was wearing has been burned by the fire. Had it not been for Mr. Perri’s courageous actions, the operator would have burned to death in her vehicle,” the statement read.
Perri did not hesitate to spring into action and rescue the woman, sustaining minor injuries in the process.
“I assessed how she was in there and then I broke the front passenger window. I managed to get one of her legs free; the other one was pretty mutilated — I had a hard time with it,” the firefighter said.
According to officials, the man reached the woman just as the flames reached the passenger side of the car.
“I just yelled, ‘You have to work with me, because we’re running out of time here,'” he told the victim.
Perri said his training as a firefighter began when he saw the single-vehicle accident
Perri had burned his own coat in the incident, officials said after the rescue
Volunteer firefighters arrived on scene and found the woman’s vehicle engulfed in flames
Dashcam footage from the night of the incident shows Perri pulling the woman to safety as they arrive at the scene.
When the ambulance crew and the fire brigade arrived on the scene, the car can be seen engulfed in flames.
The man’s response has now been described as heroic both on the ground and in the field.
“His actions are a testament to him, the White Plains FD and the fire department as a whole,” Brookfield’s volunteer organization said.
Officials said the woman would have been burned to death had it not been for Perri
The woman, who was not initially identified, was taken to a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut after the incident. A report indicated she is in ICU.
No others were injured in the incident.
“I was the first firefighter on the scene from Brookfield and the victim would never have survived if he hadn’t done what he did,” said BVFC chief Andrew Ellis.
The cause of the single-vehicle accident is unknown.