A man is being credited with saving a woman's life in the early hours of New Year's Day after he ran across several lanes of traffic on the 91 Freeway, jumped over the center divider and pulled a woman from the wreckage of a burning vehicle in Buena Park.
Alfred Castro said he was driving his kids and wife home after a New Year's Eve celebration on the westbound 91 Freeway when he saw the car on fire in the eastbound lanes. So, he pulled over and grabbed his flashlight.
Castro used the flashlight to slow cars down to get across the freeway and jumped the center divider. There, he could hear a woman screaming.
"I had to find a solution to this problem, right now," Castro said about the rescue. "She's got to get out. I got to get out. We all got to get out."
Alfred’s daughter, Susana, shot video as her dad ran in to pull the woman from the car.
Castro described the scene.
"The woman's head was literally about one inch from the flames so I grabbed her by the wrists and that's how I was able to pull her out, because she was limp and knocked out," he said.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
Castro covered the unconscious woman in a blanket, and she was taken away in an ambulance where she woke up and spoke to paramedics. The woman suffered major injuries, but she was conscious and talking, according to authorities.
Castro said he hopes to get in touch with her one day and thinks he was just at the right place at the right time.
"It's not like I woke up and ate my Cheerios to go do this," Castro said. "No, it was a spontaneous reaction. There's a life at risk and I had to react to allow them to survive."
