Source: Bart_Kowski / Getty
A Salisbury police officer is being celebrated as a hero after saving an unconscious truck driver from his tractor trailers just moments before it exploded.
On August 8, Lieutenant Corey Brooks was on his way to another incident about 9 p.m. when he seen a tractor-trailer collide with a highway wall underneath an I-85 bridge, catching fire as a result of the accident.
When the 24-year-old police veteran went to the vehicle, opened the passenger door, you can hear Lt. Brooks on the body-cam footage telling the driver, ‘Hey Sir, you need to get out of the truck”, before he noticed the driver, Michael Williams, was unconscious. The officer unbuckled his seat belt and pulled him from behind the wheel and out of the vehicle.
“This was one of the scariest moments of my career, and at the time of the driver in the truck and me trying to get him out because, at first, I couldn’t move him,” Brooks told Queen City News. “I was thinking, ‘Ok. Either I’m going to die here with him, or I’ve got to get him out of this truck.’”
According to a press release from the city, “an unidentified female driver assisted Brooks in pulling the driver to safety on the opposite side of the road across two travel lanes.” The fire seems to explode in the footage as Brooks and the other driver covered their faces and turn away from the flames.
The driver eventually regained consciousness when fire and rescue teams arrived on the scene.
During a Salisbury City Council meeting on Septemeber 5, Lt. Brooks was recognized for his heroic actions.
