Woman Rescued From Fiery Crash

Security guard says he was "at the right place at the right time"

A security guard who was "at the right place at the right time" dragged a woman trapped in a fiery crash in South Dallas from her car with seconds to spare.

The wreck happened Tuesday when a car careened off Highway 67 onto the access road below and slammed into a pickup truck at the corner of Kiest Boulevard.

"I knew I had to get her out," said Brad Bowman, a security guard and student at Christ for the Nations Institute, a nearby Bible school.

The drama was captured in a series of photos by passerby Don Hoover, who snapped the pictures on his cellphone as he was driving by on Highway 67.

Bowman was in the school's music building when he saw the crash and ran out to help.

"My first reaction was, 'I'm the first one here, and there's nobody else around,'" he said. "I was very afraid. It was a scary situation."

He said flames were leaping 15 feet into the air.

The pickup driver managed to make it out before the fire. But the woman in the car was trapped, Bowman said.

"I knew I had to get her out," he said. "I could see her inside. She was in and out of consciousness."

At first, he ran to the driver's side.

"But it was too hot," Bowman said. "I couldn't get her out. I could only stand there a few seconds."

He ran to the passenger's side, but the door was locked.

"I had to kick the window," he said.

It took several attempts for it to break.

"It was just a reaction," he said. "I didn't have much time to think about it."

He dragged the woman through the window and to safety -- with no time to spare.

"Within just a few seconds after that, the blaze entered into her car, so had we not been there, she wouldn't have made it," Bowman said.

Administrators at the Bible school where Bowman works and studies say he is a hero.

"You know he's going to be a pastor," said Jack Hatcher, vice president and provost of Christ for the Nations Institute. "He wants to protect people eventually spiritually. And here he is out there physically protecting this woman and saving her life. "

"I was at the right place at the right time," Bowman said.

"I feel good about it," Bowman said. "I feel that I did what I was called to do at the moment, that I responded the way I was supposed to respond. I have no regrets. And it's a good feeling."

The rescued woman, Cynthia Brady, of Cedar Hill, survived the fiery crash -- only to go to jail.

She was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. Her blood alcohol content was four-and-a-half times the legal limit, police said.

The driver she hit went to the hospital to be treated for burns. His condition wasn't immediately available late Thursday.

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