Recently released dashboard camera footage captured a South Carolina police officer rushing toward a burning vehicle to rescue a trapped woman following a crash in May.
The incident happened at about 1:30 a.m. May 28 as Mount Pleasant Police Officer Doug Richards was heading home after his shift, the department stated in an online post. That's when he spotted a car that had caught fire with the driver still inside after a collision with a truck.
Richards used a fire extinguisher from his cruiser to battle the flames in order to reach and pull the woman inside the car to safety. Throughout the rescue, Richards continued to calm and reassure the panicked woman.
“Please help me! I don’t wanna die,” the woman can be heard telling the officer in the dashcam video.
“She was afraid," Richards told WCBD-TV weeks after the rescue. "I wanted to ensure her that I was going to do everything I could do to make sure she was safe, to get her out of the vehicle."
Once out of the burning vehicle, the woman was taken to the hospital, but no details were released concerning her condition. Richards received a Life Saving Award from the department for the rescue.
