‘Truly God’s angel’: Homeless Army veteran saves man from burning vehicle after crash
‘Truly God’s angel’: Homeless Army veteran saves man from burning vehicle after crash
Posted by: Lizzy Murica|Lawenforcement Today
A homeless Army veteran is being hailed as a hero after leaping into action to save a man whose crashed vehicle had burst into flames.
Veteran Freddie Finkley, 56, and his girlfriend, Stephanie Tidwell, have been homeless for approximately five years.
On Wednesday, April 7, they were panhandling at the Cervantes Street ramps by Interstate 110, just north of downtown Pensacola.
Finkley told the Pensacola News Journal that he observed a car weaving, and seconds later, the vehicle collided head-on with a pickup truck.
He recalled:
“Then I ran onto the bridge.
“Then the car started to catch on fire, and then the flames were coming through the dashboard.”
The car’s driver, Eric Lopez, 34, began “panicking” and yelled at Finkley and another passerby to stop helping him. Despite Lopez’ protestations and the raging flames, Finkley persisted.
“He said, ‘Leave me.’
“I said, ‘I can’t leave you. You’ll burn up.’
“So I pried his hands loose from the steering wheel. This other guy came, and we picked him up and toted him up the bridge.”
Once Finkley had removed Lopez from the flaming car, Lopez suffered a seizure on the side of the road. He received aid from a passing EMT before he was transported by ambulance to a local hospital.
Finkley’s girlfriend, Stephanie Tidwell, is a double leg amputee and watched the frightening scene from her wheelchair, “terrified.”
She told the Pensacola News Journal:
“I was crying the whole time.”
She added:
”I heard him hit the bridge.
“I saw Freddie run down there and try to pull him out and him trying to get him out. I heard the guy telling Freddie that he didn’t want to get out.
“I started crying, and I just kept crying and telling Freddie, ‘Get him out! I don’t care if he don’t want to get out. Please just get him out.’”
A thankful Eric Lopez recalls nothing of the crash, according to his equally thankful grandmother, Sandra McFall.
McFall told the Orlando Sentinel:
“I asked Eric if he had anything he wanted to say to Freddie.”
She continued:
“He said, ‘I just want to thank him. But how do you thank someone who saved your life?