The brave citizen who jumped in to rescue a woman from an extremely dangerous situation is now considered part of her family.
The incident began near Roseville, California, when a fire ignited and engulfed the woman’s car, CBS Sacramento reported Thursday.
Meanwhile, Elton Ward was driving down the road with his young daughter and noticed the fiery scene. He instantly knew he must act.
“When I get there, I see Kristine and she is struggling to get out of the car,” he recalled. “That’s when my adrenaline started rushing, ‘We got to get her out of here.'”
It only takes moments for a car fire to spread, therefore, the driver and passengers must act quickly to escape and stay as far away from the scene as possible, according to Consumer Reports.
However, Kristine Smith was recovering from knee surgery and although her husband and granddaughter were able to escape, they could not rescue her.
She initially wanted to unlock the door and kick it open, Smith recalled.
“But I couldn’t, so I said, ‘OK, God. It’s me and you,’ because I went to open the door and the flames lit up and I thought, ‘OK, clear a path.’ And that’s when I looked up and my little angel here said, ‘Let me help you out,'” she added.
That was the moment Ward took hold of her and brought her to safety.
Video footage showed the car covered in smoke and flames as other vehicles passed by the scene on the interstate:
“Literally a matter of 30 seconds, boom. First explosion, loud, big, big explosion. Then, when that explosion happened, huge flames come up,” Ward recalled.
Since that day, the two have become friends and “Elton is part of our family now and our kids have texted him,” Smith explained.
“Everybody in a sense is our family because that’s somebody else’s family and you want your family protected,” Ward stated, adding, “So that’s just the way I look at things.”
Smith believes the fire began the moment her husband drove their vehicle over flammable insulation left on the road.