NICK OF TIME
Peel police officers rescue trapped, unconscious man from crashed vehicle
Three Peel police officers rescued a trapped man from a vehicle about ‘to blow at any moment,’
A Peel police officer says he was just doing his job when he and two other officers pulled an semi-conscious man from a burning vehicle that may have been about to blow up.
Around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, Sgt. John Rocha, Cadet Daniel Sheikh and Const. Matthew Pitula responded to reports of a vehicle that crashed into a tree at Fairwind Dr. and Bristol Rd. in Mississauga.
They arrived to find a “mangled” car engulfed in flames, and a semi-conscious driver trapped inside.
The trio immediately tried to extricate the driver.
“I was scared. I was fearful, and my sergeant was telling me, this car is going to blow at any moment,” Sheikh told the Star.
“But, at that moment, when you see someone in trouble — unconscious and fire all around them — you don’t really think about the car blowing up or your own safety. I just wanted to get him out as fast as possible and I just kind of disregarded my own safety.”
The driver’s side door was mangled due to the impact of the crash as well as heat from the flames.
After kicking and prying the door open, the officers realized the driver was stuck, because the airbag was deployed and he was wearing a seatbelt.
“He still had the seatbelt on, and the flames … were about five feet above the roofline of the vehicle,” Pitula recalled. “The whole vehicle was fully engulfed.”
Pitula managed to cut the seatbelt with a knife.
“At that moment, we began just dragging him out as quickly as possible,” Sheikh said. “As we were dragging him out, his clothes were still on fire, so we were just trying to get rid of the fire with our gloves and just trying to extinguish the fire.”
Pitula called the rescue “a scary moment.”
“We didn’t know if the vehicle was going to blow up, and how fast the flames were actually going to reach the driver,” he said.
None of the officers were injured in the rescue.
The man was taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Police are investigating the incident and say speed was a “definite” factor in the collision.
“He’s very lucky to be alive,” said Peel paramedics’ Jay Szymanski.
“By the time paramedics arrived on scene, he was already freed from the car. The whole thing was engulfed in flames,” he said. “He’s lucky he was only trapped for a short period of time.”
Peel police spokesperson Const. Bally Saini said the officers’ actions saved the man’s life, but the officers are downplaying their heroics.
“I don’t consider myself a hero,” Pitula said with a chuckle. “It was an instinct. It was part of my job …. I would definitely not consider myself a hero.
“I would have done it regardless. I was just worried about his safety.”