Pitt Meadows' top firefighter has high praise for the men and women who leapt into action the moment a car full of people crashed into a hydro pole and burst into flames Saturday night.
Chief Don Jolley arrived on scene to find a vehicle up on the meridian against a hydro pole and fully engulfed in flames. Luckily, bystanders had already extricated the five victims.
"There were probably seven or eight bystanders who rolled the vehicle onto its wheels and pulled those people out of the burning vehicle," Jolley said. "The vehicle was on fire when they did it."
Veteran advanced first aid instructor Kristina Gardner was almost home when she noticed the flames and ran to help with her extensive first aid kit, including oxygen. When she saw four of the rescued people were conscious and breathing, she went straight to a man in cardiac arrest.
“We were a distance away from it, but I mean you could feel the heat. The tires popped and we all kind of ducked because we weren’t quite sure if we were far enough way at that point," she says.
“It was just sort of a fluke that the nurses were there, that I showed up with the oxygen, that the guys pulled over and stopped and helped and so I think that, with the first aid training made a huge difference”
Ridge Meadows RCMP tell CTV news the four passengers were hospitalized and released that same night. The male driver in his 60s remains hospitalized in serious conditions.
They're still investigating the cause of the crash that led to the fire.
Firefighters not only had to douse the flames, but had to strategize how to handle fuel leaking from the burning vehicle into a storm drain below. Jolley calls it a "complex scene" with first responders, observers and Good Samaritans throughout the active fire scene.
Jolley is applauding the men and women who intervened, preventing what could've easily been a family tragedy.
"There's absolutely no question that this family's lives were saved by those people."
