Man makes a fiery rescue

Justin Carr looked in the driver’s eyes, the man’s body bruised and bloodied, legs locked under a dashboard crumpled into a steel trap, holding him there while the flames crept forward to claim his life.

“I told him what we were going to do, and he said OK,” Carr said. “Then he started screaming.”

With Carr grabbing the driver’s belt, and two other men pulling him from under the arms, the three yanked slowly, and painfully, the driver from his jagged coffin to safety.

They carried him about 30 feet then laid him down. All turned to look at the man’s battered Chevy Silverado, whose cab was engulfed in fire. If they had waited another minute, the driver would have been killed, Carr said.

It was a scene Carr has lived through many times before. As a Newport Beach firefighter and paramedic for 12 years, the last two as a captain, Carr has worked with many people in their most vulnerable moments of pain and panic. About 10:15 p.m. Saturday on Interstate 215 near Sun City, Carr helped another man endure the pain it would take to save his life.

Fire department leaders are expected to recognize Carr for his efforts at a firefighter appreciation breakfast in October.

It started minutes earlier as Carr and his wife were returning from a friend’s birthday party in Palm Springs.

Headed south on the 215 with a scattering of cars on the road, they slowed when they saw the brake lights in front of them and a cloud of dust plumed toward the night sky.

As they drove closer, they saw a beat-up Chevy Silverado on the side of the road and one of its passengers wandering outside of the car, dazed and confused. It looked like it had rolled over at least once, and the driver was stuck inside the cab with his legs stuck under a crushed dashboard.

By the time Carr and his wife got out, several other drivers had already pulled over and were running around yelling, trying to figure out what to do. Carr’s wife handed the men a flashlight, which they used to smash the driver’s side window.

A fire had started in the engine, and the men had no time to waste.

With a bit of leadership from Carr, the men worked to open the driver-side door. No luck.

“We were yanking as hard as we could. The locking pins on those doors are pretty tight,” Carr said. Not a moment to spare, the men grabbed the weakest part of the door they could — the framing for the window, and miraculously forced the metal frame down, folding it in two and giving them enough room to pull out the driver.

Firefighters were there within minutes, but would have been too late to save the driver’s life, Carr said.

“We all had the same goal: to get him out and get him safe,” Carr said of his fellow rescuers. “I don’t think I could’ve done it without them.”

On the way home, he and his wife remained in disbelief.

“You never really plan for something like that,” he said. “We talked about it. Wow, that’s crazy. That’s not a daily occurrence. That’s one of those things that happens once in a lifetime.”