‘I reached in there and started pulling him out': Eyewitness shares account of fiery balloon crash

The two pilots hurt when their racing balloon crashed in Kaufman County continue to recover.

Days later, we’re learning more about the intense scene Monday night from an eyewitness who rushed to help.

Israel Alfaro Lopez is an educator at Adamson High School in Dallas. Now, he has "hero" to add to his resume. He was visiting his sister in Crandall when he witnessed a gas balloon, navigated by two Polish pilots, descending rapidly.

Initial reports revealed the balloon collided with a powerline Monday night in the 4300 block of Farm-to-Market Road about 30 minutes east of Downtown Dallas.

That’s when Alfaro Lopez stopped his car and got out to help. While assessing the scene, he discovered others had already taken one pilot out of the fiery wreckage. But there was still one pilot left.

“I asked them if there was anybody else in there and that’s when they said 'yes,'” he said. “When I finally looked inside the basket, the second pilot was on the bottom of the basket. So, I reached in there and started pulling him out. We didn’t realize in the moment that his legs were broken.”

Alfaro Lopez soon found out just how precious those moments were. Just minutes after pulling the second pilot to safety there was an explosion.

“I thank God that we were able to help him. I thank God that he gave us time to back away from that before that happened,” said Alfaro Lopez.

The pilots had been part of the Gordon Bennett Cup international gas balloon race. A spokesperson for the race tells NBC 5 the balloons were monitored from a command center in Albuquerque, and the crash site is part of what would have been a normal path for the pilots. We’re told all balloons started at 8:30 p.m. Saturday and Poland Team 1 was the first of 17 balloons to launch.

This week, Alfaro Lopez is back in the classroom and said he doesn’t think of himself as a hero. He said he’s simply someone who did what was right, and that’s the person his friends and family expect him to be.

“They’re proud,” he said. “But I think they know that that’s just also my personality and so that actually helped me understand that if it was the other way around, if those seconds were too short and I didn’t make it, my family would have still been very proud.”

Alfaro Lopez said he was able to visit both pilots at the hospital in Dallas where they are recovering. We’re told the official cause of the crash is under investigation.