A brave Texas cop saved a man whose car suddenly caught fire while driving on the highway, pulling him free seconds before the vehicle went up in flames, harrowing video shows.
Cops said the driver’s Nissan Altima suddenly caught fire while he was heading down Highway 114 in Southlake on June 7.
Nail-biting footage released by the department on Wednesday shows the vehicle billowing heaps of smoke on the busy highway as it pulls over to make an emergency stop on the roadway’s right shoulder.
The frightening scene was immediately noticed by Southlake Police Corporal Joshua Swisher.
Swisher had been in the middle of dealing with an unrelated traffic stop on the highway when he was notified of the heavily smoking car by his superiors.
Dashcam and bodycam footage shows Swisher pulling his car up and running down the busy highway to the smoking car — which almost immediately begins to catch fire.
“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.”
Dark smoke fills the car, making the driver nearly invisible, the clip shows.
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.
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