MASON, Mich — Dramatic body camera footage released by the Ingham County Sheriff's Office shows two first responders rescuing a man from a burning car after a crash Friday night in Stockbridge Township.
- A man is alive thanks to the efforts of two first responders Friday night in Ingham County.
- The rescue happened after a car crashed into a tree in Stockbridge Township.
- Video shows a deputy and police officer getting the man out of the vehicle before it was engulfed in flames.
WATCH: "OATH THAT THEY TAKE— MAN RESCUED FROM BURNING CAR IN INGHAM COUNTY CRASH
The video, which has been circulating on social media, captures the moments after a vehicle crashed into a tree on M-52 near Topping Road, trapping the driver inside as flames emerged from the car.
"Anybody else in the car?" one person can be heard asking in the footage.
The body camera video shows a sheriff's deputy and Stockbridge officer working together to pull the man from the burning vehicle before flames completely covered the car.
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"Keep kicking. There you go. Keep kicking," officers can be heard encouraging the trapped driver.
Paul Beasinger, a retired Lansing police lieutenant and chief operating officer of Command Training, said the rescue demonstrates officers' commitment to protecting lives.
"I guarantee you neither one of these officers ever trained to pull people out of burning vehicles that's not something that's part of the police academy or day-to-day training," Beasinger said. "I've pulled people out of burning houses before but nothing as extreme as this."
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Beasinger explained that officers are trained to prioritize others' lives above their own safety.
"We have a whole priority of life where sometimes that's part of the oath that they take is to put themselves into harm's way to keep people safe," Beasinger said.
While some officers may have natural heroic instincts, Beasinger said constant training helps develop these life-saving responses.
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"It's a built-in thing and you really sometimes don't recognize it until you're in the heat in the moment of something," Beasinger said. "By the time the average officer graduates from their police academy where they've had hundreds and hundreds of hours of training, that starts to get instilled in them."
The 42-year-old Lansing man was taken to a hospital where he recovered from non-life threatening injuries. The crash remains under investigation.
"We're fortunate in today's day in age where we can get footage like that, we can push it out into the community so they can see this type of work that these men and women do every single day," Beasinger said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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