ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. (KTVI) — A fiery crash captured on camera Wednesday revealed a man sprinting towards the wreck just seconds before the vehicle lit up in flames.
“I started sprinting and it came down to if it explodes, I guess this is where God meant for me to go,” said Austin Killian.
Killian, 26, who is from the small town of Jonesburg in central Missouri, was reluctant to share his picture or talk about what he did.
“We all are heroes. We really are. It takes a moment like that to put it in perspective for you,” he said.
Killian saw the crash as he was driving his truck on Highway 370 in St. Charles County.
“It wasn’t surreal. It was real because I knew right then and there that I had to do something,” he said.
Video from the scene shows him running towards the trapped trucker.
“I run like a complete dork. I didn’t realize that,” he joked.
Killian said another hero was there with him.
“We both kind of put our hands in there, we ripped the glass out. The driver was hung up on a seat belt, so we reached up in there, clicked the seat belt, and we hooked his arms and we just pulled him right on out of there,” he said. “Pulled him away from there as fast as we could.”
Killian said the driver was in shock but seemed OK before medics helped him. Killian doesn’t even know his name – or the name of the other good Samaritan.
“I do believe God put me there,” he said.
Killian said he agreed to talk in the hopes that this moment could become a turning point for our country.
“There is a lot of negativity. There is a lot of, I hate to say it, it seems like hatred in this country right now, and I really just don’t think we as a country are going to be able to move on from this unless we find that common ground, understand that we all are heroes. We really are,” he said. “It takes a moment like that.”