Connecticut

Off-Duty NY Firefighter Praised for Saving Woman From Burning Car Crash

A man coming home from his shift with the White Plains Fire Department spotted the fiery car crash in his hometown

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An off-duty New York firefighter found himself at the right place, at the right time to save the life of a woman trapped in a fiery car wreck early Saturday morning.

Fresh off his shift with the White Plains Fire Department, Nicholas Perri Jr. was on his way home in Brookfield, Connecticut, when he spotted a raging car fire a few feet off the road around 3:15 a.m.

The veteran firefighter pulled over to the side of Route 7 near Junction Road and jumped into action, racing toward the burning car and risking his life in the process.

"Instinct, training kicked in and ran in and did the best I could do to get her out," Perri said Saturday, hours after the life-saving rescue.

Without gear or a hose line, he gained access to the vehicle and removed the badly injured female driver as flames were entering the passenger compartment, Brookfield fire officials said.

"I assessed how she was in there and then I broke the front passenger window. I was able to get one of her legs free, the other was pretty mangled -- it was giving me a hard time," Perri said. "I was just yelling, 'You got to work with me because we are running out of time here.'"

Dashcam video captured the first heroic rescue in Brookfield, Connecticut.

EMS and Brookfield volunteer firefighters made it to the scene moments later. As they arrived, dashcam video shows Perri guiding the badly injured driver out of the car engulfed in flames. She was treated and transported to Danbury Hospital.

Perri was also treated at the scene for minor injuries but refused to be transported.

Chief Andrew Ellis, among the firefighters racing to the scene, was surprised to arrive and find the hero was a fellow firefighter.

"I was the first firefighter on scene from Brookfield, and there was no way that the victim would have survived had he not done what he'd done," Ellis told News 4.

At last check, the woman was still recovering in the ICU.

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