Good Samaritans rescue man from burning van on Ontario highway

Last Thursday, a driver was rescued from a burning SUV only moments before it was engulfed by flames.

The driver, believed to be in his late seventies, was in medical distress and began driving erratically on Highway 401 just west of Kitchener. Witnesses saw his Nissan SUV side-swipe a transport truck, then veer off the road.

Fortunately for the man, good Samaritans quickly moved into action.

Transport driver Micheal Collicutte, 28, sped to the scene of the crash where another good Samaritan was trying to reach the conscious-but-incoherent man through the passenger door. Collicutte managed to yank the mangled door open.

Jamie Davis, a highway patrol supervisor and volunteer firefighter, spotted flames coming from under the vehicle and immediately joined the rescue effort.

"I figured we had to get him out of there," Davis, 30, told The Record. If not, Davis figured, "he was dead no matter what by the time the fire trucks got there."

The group pulled the man out of the burning vehicle, carrying him to safety just minutes before the SUV was engulfed in flames. Fire spread to nearby trees.

The driver was taken to Cambridge Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

OPP Constable Stacey Culbert said that the heroic strangers prevented an otherwise certain tragedy.

"I'm just really glad that he's OK," Collicutte told The Record, adding, "I just hope that somebody would do that for me or my family."