Fort Worth-Based Paramedics Risk Their Lives to Keep Crash Victims from Burning Alive

Paramedics Miguel Brito and Ryan Bader were the right people in the right place at the right time Wednesday night.

The pair were driving to a staging area to wait for calls when they happened to drive upon a fiery crash at the Interstate 20, Interstate 35 interchange in Fort Worth.

"The accident must have just happened seconds before we got there," said Brito.

With no firefighters there, traffic building, gas leaking, and one vehicle already on fire, the two paramedics jumped into rescue mode.

"This is what we naturally do," said Brito. "We help people. We knew that it was us, right then. There was nobody else."

"There was gas pouring out of the truck," said Bader. "There was too much smoke coming from that car."

Bader grabbed a fire extinguisher from the ambulance while Brito crawled into the burning vehicle to get two unconscious victims out, one of them pinned by the dashboard.

"When I was in the vehicle, the smoke, I could barely see, barely breathe," Brito recalled. "But in my mind, I was not going to let the patient suffer what was about to happen."

They thought both victims would burn alive if they didn't move quickly.

"I don't believe the patient would have made it out of the vehicle," said Brito. "The car would have likely been engulfed by the time anybody showed up," said Bader.

Unfortunately, one of the victims, a pregnant woman and her unborn child, died at the hospital. Another victim went to the hosptial in critical condition, and a third victim suffered minor injuries.

"Me and Ryan did our best, our absolute best, to help out in any way that we can," Brito said. "I still wish we could have gotten there a little sooner."