Off-duty FDNY Chief George Healy rescues man from burning car on Belt Parkway while on the way to vacation

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Off-duty FDNY Deputy Fire Chief George Healy encountered a near-fatal crash on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn early Monday morning. "I stopped the car and kind of looked up and could tell that there was something significant had happened in front of us," Healy said, ABC News 7 reports.

Healy, a husband and father of four from Malverne, Long Island, was beginning his family's annual 18-hour drive to Disney World when he came upon the aftermath of a two-vehicle collision.

"I could already see the smoke," Healy recalled.

A two-door coupe had caught fire. Despite being barefoot, Healy ran 150 feet up the highway in his socks towards the crash. As he approached the vehicle, he noticed no one in the front seat, but a man was tangled in a seatbelt in the back, unconscious.

"I almost kind of think he may have been in the front seat and the force of the accident, he got driven to the back seat of the car. I think he was unconscious from the impact," Healy speculated. 

Healy quickly flagged down an NYPD officer, who rushed to assist.

"Took a little bit of time to get him out of that seatbelt that was kind of confining him, and now it was the fact of trying to drag this person that was lifeless out of the back of the car," Healy said.

They managed to pull the man out just before the car was fully engulfed in flames.

"If there wasn't divine intervention on his behalf, it would have been a bad evening for him," adds Healy, "It felt nice to be in the right place at the right time, and any time you can help somebody, it makes you feel good."

The man Healy saved is expected to recover.

 

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