A retired Florida firefighter and a nurse are being hailed as heroes after jumping into action Saturday to save a woman’s life.
Betty Grant says she found herself trapped inside her car as it went up in flames around 2 a.m. in the middle of I-95.
As onlookers pulled up alongside the burning wreck, many were unsure of what to do.
That’s when retired Fire Capt. Eric Fajkis and graduate nursing student Carlens Danaud put their experience to the test.
“There was a lot of smoke in the car and a lot of heat,” Fajkis said. “The window was only halfway down and I start pulling on the glass and with the help of other people, we were able to break the rest of the glass and we grabbed the driver, the lady, and we dragged her out of the vehicle.”
Though both men knew what they had to do, neither had their usual life-saving tools on hand.
“It was chaotic, the scene was really bad,” Danaud said.
Fajkis recalled, “I was trying to think, ‘What do I have in my car that would bring the flames down a little bit?’ Then I thought about what we have on the fire trucks — fire blanket.”
Fajkis said that’s when he ran to his car and grabbed two towels and used them to cover some of the flames that had consumed the driver’s side door.
“That gave us a few seconds to actually to pull the victim, the driver out,” Fajkis said.
Once Grant was out of harm’s way, the vehicle exploded.
“The airbags were exploding and shooting debris in the air,” Fajkis recalled. “The tires were exploding in a big ball of fire.”
After the rescue was complete, Danaud began working to revive Grant.
“I already know what to do, what to check for,” Danaud said. “Like whether or not she was conscious, if she was like breathing properly, if there was an obstruction, and that is what I did.”
The nursing student did sustain some burns to his face but he says it’s nothing he can’t handle.
After Grant’s life was saved, a friendship was born with the two men who rushed to her aid.
Danaud said it feels good to be able to save someone.
“I wouldn’t call myself a hero, just a normal citizen doing something good,” he said.
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