South Brunswick police officers save driver from burning car

As I have said often, police officers report for their shifts daily, having no idea what to expect in the coming hours.

This past weekend in the early morning hours on Sunday there was a car crash in Franklin Township where a single vehicle had gone off the road. South Brunswick Police Officers Thomas Sites and Yash Shroff were the closest to the scene when the call came in that the driver was trapped in the car and smoke was pouring out.

Within a couple of minutes, the officers rolled up on the crash scene and rushed to the burning car. They discovered a young male driver unconscious in the driver's seat. The door was locked, so the officers got to their vehicle to retrieve a "Breaching Tool" and smashed the rear window. As they were trying to extract the man from the vehicle, flames started shooting out of the front of the vehicle. Wasting no time, Officer Sites smashed the driver's side window and reached in to unlock the door.

As Sites opened the door, flames poured out from the undercarriage of the car. Literally out of time, the officers pulled the driver out of the vehicle as flames consumed the wreck. Another minute and this would have been reading as an obituary for the driver with potentially life-threatening injuries to the officers.

Police chief calls the rescue ‘the definition of heroic’

South Brunswick Police Chief Raymond Hayducka had this to say about his brave Officers:

“I have watched the video and it is the definition of heroic. The driver is severely injured, trapped, and his car is on fire. The fire was quickly spreading and appeared to be almost at Officer Sites' feet when they freed the driver. It is the split-second actions of these officers that this 26-year-old is alive today.”