LEWISTON WOODVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) — A recent North Carolina college graduate helped save a deputy from a fiery car crash this past week.
The incident happened on New Year’s Eve along a highway in Lewiston Woodville in eastern North Carolina, according to the Daily Advance.
A deputy received a call and tried to turn his car around on the road, said Dajour Keemer, who was with two friends in a car behind the deputy.
But in the rain, the deputy’s car left the road and crashed.
Keemer, 22, said that all the lights on the deputy’s cruiser were knocked out in the wreck.
“If it wasn’t for us seeing it – we probably wouldn’t have noticed him,” Keemer told NewsNation affiliate WNCN.
The group then approached the wrecked car.
“We were all confused, as we got closer, we noticed that the car ran straight into the trees,” Keemer wrote on Facebook.
The wrecked cruiser was smoldering.
That’s when Keemer, a friend and Keemer’s girlfriend “jumped into action,” he says.
“In that moment, my first thought was ‘I can’t let this man die in front of me’,” Keemer said.
They managed to pull the deputy from the car just as the cruiser burst into flames. In a video captured by Keemer just after the rescue, the deputy can be seen lying on the road after they pulled him across the road.
“I literally just saved a man’s life,” Keemer said in the video showing the burning car.
Keemer said the deputy had broken bones and couldn’t move.
“This cop crashed and I dragged him out of the car — saved him. It’s crazy,” Keemer added.
Keemer graduated from Elizabeth City State University on Dec. 12 and was on his way home to Lewiston Woodville, his hometown, to visit his parents when the incident happened.
“I tell people I was only doing what God put me in position to do!” Keemer said about the rescue.
The deputy was set to undergo surgery after the crash and is recovering at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, the Daily Advance reported.