An off-duty Army captain is being hailed as a hero after he and other neighbors helped rescue three people from a fiery crash on a country highway in Chatham County, North Carolina.
Capt. Steve Voglezon was on his way to the mall with his girlfriend when he saw two wrecked cars after a head-on-collision, with one vehicle, a Chrysler SUV, engulfed in flames in the middle of the road.
He used a fire extinguisher to break the windows of the other car nearby, an Acura sedan, and rescued William Thompson, 67 and his wife Kathleen, 63.
"They were trapped in there," Everett Bacon, a neighbor who had grabbed several fire extinguishers from his home and battled the flames, told NBC affiliate WNCN. "The windows were up. The doors were locked."
John Spurrell, another neighbor who lives nearby, helped rescue the other driver from his burning Chrysler SUV before grabbing his cell phone to start recording the scene.
The Thompsons and the other driver, Mark Ricketts, 59, were transported to UNC Hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries. Ricketts was charged with traveling left of center, WNCN reported.
Spurrell called Capt. Voglezon "a real hero," though the servicemember said he was just doing his job.
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"We have a calling to do whatever we we're called to do," Capt. Voglezon said. "Today I was called to be there at that spot at that time."
