Man pulled from burning car in New Hampshire

LONDONDERRY, N.H. (WHDH) -- Police are crediting two good Samaritans with helping save a man’s life after pulling him from a burning car.

Earl Wickline was heading into work early Saturday morning when he saw the jeep alongside Mammoth Road, smashed up and burning.

“The flames were coming up in the back. The front of the car had collapsed. In the front there was smoke. It was all black and dark and I couldn’t see anybody. So I went to the driver’s side door and I put my hand in and I could feel that there was somebody there, but I couldn’t even budge him,” said Wickline.

Earl tried peeling back the front windshield. Shannon Rouille lives next door and she and her daughter Apryl came rushing to help.

“Him and Apryl just sprung, they just knew exactly what to do and I was yelling at my daughter, the car’s on fire, get back from the fire and she wasn’t listening to nobody,” said Rouille.

“I said I think he’s dead. I said, ‘if this thing explodes we're all dead. We have to get away from it.’ The young girl screams and said, ‘we can’t leave him in there,’” said Wickline.

The two helped douse the flames. Wickline then went inside the burning car, determined to save the driver’s life.

“I reached in and now the guy’s back is on fire so I take my hand and I start putting the fire out and I reach up underneath him and I think ‘I’m not going to be able to budge this guy,’ and I just pulled and slid him onto the ground. So now he’s on the ground next to the jeep and the flames are getting worse so I start pulling him into the woods,” said Earl Wickline.

“The whole inside of that car is gone. I don’t even know how that guy survived it. Those two people were heroes, to save that guy, to pull him from that car, they were,” said Rouille.

Witnesses said the man appeared to be conscious. The victim was airlifted to a Boston hospital. His condition is unknown and investigators have not released his identity.