Off-duty paramedic performs highway rescue

[Marion County Fire Rescue]

An off-duty Marion County Fire Rescue critical care paramedic jumped into action on the morning of Dec. 30 to save a man from a car engulfed in flames on Interstate 75.

Stephen Cabrera, who lives in Spring Hill, was making his hour-and-a-half drive to work when he saw a vehicle on fire on the side of the highway by the tree line. Cabrera said the rescue differed greatly from a usual rescue call because he had to improvise using the tools on hand to save the passenger.

“In a life and death matter like that, take that couple of seconds to stop and breathe and kind of focus on what’s going on, because your safety has come first,” he said.

Stephen Cabrera [Marion County Fire Rescue]

The accident occurred near Exit 341 in the northbound lanes of I-75. Firefighter paramedics were dispatched at 7:09 a.m. from the nearby Marion Oaks Station 24, but Cabrera happened to be in the right place at the right time and stopped at the scene first.

“I saw the occupant inside the vehicle actively getting burned on his right side because the right side of the passenger compartment was now on fire inside the vehicle,” he said.

Cabrera and several bystanders stepped in to remove the man from the burning vehicle, using only a pocketknife and a part from the crashed car.

“I had a knife on me, so I cut the seat belt and I cut the airbag that was keeping us from pulling him out, and then we were able to open the car door and drag him out,” he said. “At that point, we pulled him about 10 feet away from the car, and then we busted the rear window to try to look inside to make sure everyone was out.”

Cabrera has been a firefighter for nearly 20 years and said that first-responders and civilians alike should stay focused in a crisis to ensure their own safety in order to assist others.

“Even I, sometimes, with the adrenaline hitting you can find the tunnel vision can creep up on you,” he said. “You still want to go back home to your family, so do what you can to save the other people, but you got to take care of you first.”

By 7:17 a.m., an engine and rescue from Station 24 arrived on scene, extinguished the fire and provided aid to the patient. The man was transported to a local trauma hospital.

“I definitely appreciate the recognition from the community and everything, but I don’t feel like I did anything out of the ordinary. I was just off duty,” Cabrera said.

Cabrera said he would have done the same thing outside of work as if he were on duty and extended his gratitude to the bystanders who stopped to help.

“I do think that the citizens who also stopped and helped are really the ones that were important there, because they’re not used to situations like I do in my career every day,” he said. “The fact that the community pulled together and assisted with saving the man’s life was very refreshing.”