EASTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Two brothers and a police officer are being credited with making a daring save in Easton Friday, helping an elderly man out of a burning pickup truck after he crashed into a dump truck.
Crews responded to the area of 537 Turnpike Street (Route 138) at approximately 2:15 a.m. for a multi-car crash.
When police arrived, they found Ryan Mendes and his brother were already there trying to help a 78-year-old man from Raynham who was trapped behind the wheel of his truck.
“We couldn’t get any of the doors open. The windows were blown out,” Mendes said. “I stuck my head, I pushed open one of the windows and looked in, and kind of woke up the guy and asked him if he was okay. And he said, ‘I honestly don’t know.'”
Police say an initial investigation shows an unoccupied Mack dump truck was disabled on the side of the southbound lane when the pickup truck, traveling southbound on Turnpike Street, struck the back of the disabled Mack truck, trapping the pickup’s driver.
A third car then hit the back of the F-350 and caught fire. That driver was able to get out on their own, but the vehicles quickly became engulfed in flames.
“My brother had to climb through the back seat while the officer was pulling him through the front seat window,” Mendes explained. “So he was trapped, he was very trapped in there and they kind of had to free his legs just to get him out.”
Easton police officer Dean Soucie explained the conditions they all faced.
“We did feel the heat of the fire as we approached, however, really there was no consideration for anything other than the individual at that time,” Soucie said.
“I was in fact scared, I was more scared that the guy wouldn’t have made it out of there if it exploded,” Mendes said.
Soucie is now hailing Mendes and his brother as heroes.
“I’m just happy he’s doing okay honestly. I feel like if he wasn’t there it could have been completely different,” Soucie said.
The 78-year-old man was taken to a hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
The crash is still under investigation.
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