Cops, Eyewitnesses Rush to Flip Burning Car to Rescue Injured Driver in Texas

You can also see it at the bottom of the page. The accident occurred on the SH 358, when a car going the wrong way smashed into another and flipped it. The latter vehicle burst into flames with the driver still trapped inside.

Eyewitnesses and responding officers rushed to flip it back, so as to get the person out before the fire spread from the engine to the rest of the car. It was a rush against the clock and you can sense the urgency in the short video, taken from the dashcam on one of the police cruisers.

“On New Year’s Day, civilians and Corpus Christi Police officers worked together to rescue a 70-year-old male from a burning vehicle. His vehicle was struck by a vehicle traveling the wrong way on SH 358 and had flipped onto its side,” Corpus Christi PD says in the caption to the video.

“The efforts from the officers and civilians are commended for saving the life of the 70-year-old male, who is believed would not have survived without their heroic efforts,” the caption further reads.

While this driver is expected to make a full recovery and the other passengers were able to leave the car before the fire, one person did die: 28-year-old Richard Lopez was pronounced dead at the scene. He was the driver in the wrong-way vehicle and he became the first on the road fatality of 2019.

The police haven’t said yet whether alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash, but that should be made clear at the end of the investigation.