Philadelphia Teenager Saves Cop From Burning Car After Crash


A Philadelphia police officer is lucky to be alive after he was trapped in his burning cruiser that caught fire after a crash, and he has a teenager to thank for it, NBC Philadelphia is reporting.

At around 5:30 Saturday night, Philadelphia Police Officer Mark Kimsey was en route to a call when his cruiser was broadsided by a pickup truck. The force of the crash was so strong that Kimsey was trapped in the cruiser, which caught fire.

Enter 17-year-old Joseph Chambers, who just happens to be a volunteer firefighter in the nearby suburb of Ridley Park. The teenager was in town visiting his sister, according to WPVI. When he heard the crash, he ran outside to see what was happening, and he spotted Kimsey in the burning police cruiser.

“And I said ‘Can you get out?’ and he said ‘I can’t feel my legs.’ The door was jammed shut and I said ‘I can’t get you out through the door, I’m going to get you out through the window.”

Another bystander, 24-year-old Dante Johnson, helped the teenager pull Kimsey from the burning car.

“If we hadn’t gotten him out in time – he would have been hurt bad.”

The teenager and young adult then turned their attention to the driver of the truck, who has not yet been named, as of this post.

“I kept his neck stable while me and two other guys pulled him out and laid him down. I checked his pulse. He was breathing. He was out of it, but he was alive.”

The heroic teenager and the Philadelphia police officer whose life he saved later got to meet face to face, at the hospital where the officer is recovering.

“He was there with his buddies and they all said ‘thank you.’ I went in and talked to him for a little bit. He was glad I was there to help him out and I’m glad I was there.”

Officer Kimsey is listed as being in stable condition. He suffered head trauma from the airbag deployment, as well as burns from the fire. The unnamed driver of the other vehicle is also listed as being in stable condition.

Joseph Chambers is not the first teenager to heroically save someone from a fire; in June, according to this Inquisitr report, Colorado teenager J.D. TenNapel saved his neighbors from a wildfire.

The heroic Philadelphia teenager is downplaying his role in saving the officer’s life, saying the was just doing what anybody else would do.

[Image courtesy of: NBC Philadelphia]

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