Jamie Foxx embraces the father of a man he saved from a burning car.
The actor and singer Jamie Foxx has become a real-life action hero, pulling a man from a burning car moments before it was engulfed in flames.
Foxx and an off-duty paramedic pulled the man from the vehicle moments after it crashed near the star’s home in southern California.
The California highway patrol said the car came off the road in Ventura County and went into a ditch, rolling over multiple times and catching fire while the driver, 32-year-old Brett Kyle, was trapped inside.
Foxx said he heard the crash from his house, called 911, and ran to the scene. He said the off-duty paramedic, who was driving by at the time, used large scissors to break the window, cut the man’s seatbelt and pull him out.
Foxx said the truck went up in flames seconds after the rescue. The actor, who won an Oscar for playing Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray, said he told the man: “You’ve got to help me get you out, because I don’t want to have to leave you. You’ve got angels around you.”
“I don’t look at it as heroic,” Foxx told reporters after meeting Kyle’s father, Brad, following the rescue. “I just look at it like, you know, you just had to do something. And it all just worked out.”
Brad Kyle said he had been shown surveillance video of the crash scene, showing several cars passing by without helping.
“I just kept watching it and going, ‘My god, my god, he didn’t have to do a thing,’” Kyle said, breaking into tears as he spoke. “I think we all hope that we can do something when the time is there. But the question is, do we act or do we fear for our own life? He did not.”
Brett Kyle sustained broken bones and a punctured lung in the accident, but he is expected to survive. The highway patrol could not confirm Foxx’s involvement but said two witnesses helped extricate the driver, giving similar details to Foxx’s account. His role in the rescue was first reported by celebrity website TMZ. The name of the paramedic who stopped and helped was not immediately available.
