Harrowing body camera footage shows the moment law enforcement officers in Florida risked their lives to rescue a man from a burning car involved in a head-on collision Wednesday morning.
The video, released by the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, begins as a deputy sprints from his patrol car toward the wreckage on Interstate 95 near Edgewater, Florida. He and another officer from the Edgewater Police Department approach the burning car, coughing and struggling to breathe and see through the thick clouds of smoke.
One of the officers then begins punching out the car’s windows.
“We’re gonna get you out of there, OK?” the deputy says to the man inside. “Hold on.”
The deputy then uses a knife to cut through the deployed airbags before several officers use their collective strength in an attempt to rip the driver’s side door open, which was stuck shut from the crash.
Once firefighters arrived, the deputy and an Edgewater Police officer pulled the disoriented driver from the car before confirming with him that no one else was inside.
The highway, which had been closed following the crash, was reopened Wednesday afternoon, Lt. Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol told ABC News. The driver pulled from the burning car is in critical condition at the Orlando Regional Medical Center, Montes said.
The driver in the other car died, officials said.
Additional details were not immediately available. Authorities did not disclose what caused the crash.
ABC News’ Rachel Katz contributed to this report.
