A Texas police officer is being credited with a lifesaving rescue after pulling a driver from a burning car on a highway just moments before the vehicle was engulfed in flames, dramatic video shows.
Authorities said the man was driving a Nissan Altima along Highway 114 in Southlake on June 7 when the car suddenly caught fire.
Footage released by the Southlake Police Department on Wednesday captures the tense moments as thick smoke pours from the vehicle while it moves across the busy roadway and comes to an emergency stop on the right shoulder.
Southlake Police Corporal Joshua Swisher quickly spotted the dangerous situation unfolding.
Swisher was already on Highway 114 handling an unrelated traffic stop when supervisors alerted him to the smoking car nearby.
Dashcam and bodycam video show Swisher driving up to the scene, jumping out and sprinting along the highway toward the vehicle, which begins to ignite almost as soon as he reaches it.
“I could not even see inside the vehicle,” Swisher told Fox 4. “The only thing I saw was hands, and it was the driver trying to get his door open from the inside.”
The video shows dark smoke swallowing the interior of the car, leaving the trapped driver barely visible as Swisher rushes in to help.
The heroic cop tries opening the car’s door by grabbing the handle – but it flies right off, trapping the driver inside.
In a desperate measure, Swisher then tells the trapped man to “come out through the window” as he smashes it open with a window breaker, according to bodycam video.
Video shows him pulling the man out the window to safety and making sure there’s no one else inside right as huge flames burst out of the car.
The driver of the burning Nissan did not suffer any injuries, though the cop had some arm hair burned away, according to authorities.
Swisher was awarded the Southlake Police Department’s second-highest honor for the quick rescue, receiving the Meritorious Conduct Award, My Southlake News reported.
The courageous cop told Fox that he was just doing what any good officer in the department would do.
“I think I speak for every Southlake officer when I say that if anybody had been put in that same situation, same circumstances, any other officer would have done the same thing,” Swisher said.
