5-Year-Old Boy Pulls Little Brother From Overturned Big Rig In Houston After Father Killed In Fiery Crash


Authorities in Houston have reported that on Friday morning, two young boys had to watch their father die after being involved in a fiery crash on the North Freeway. The two survived after the 5-year-old managed to save his little brother by pulling the severely burned boy to safety following the rollover wreck and fire involving a big rig.

The horrifying crash on the freeway, just inside Beltway 8, was first reported to the police around 1:20 a.m. after the father lost control of the moving truck he had been driving with his two boys. The police say that the father driving the vehicle have lost control because he failed to “control his speed,” and it caused the big rig to strike the metal guardrail and a concrete pillar before flipping and catching on fire.

The father was thrown out of the truck when the truck crashed, and he was pronounced dead at the scene of the wreckage. Police say that somehow, the 5-year-old boy did not sustain any serious injuries when the crash occurred and was able to repeat the events of the night, including how he saved his 2-year-old brother.

It was a story Sgt. James Roque advised the media of at the press conference.

“The 5-year-old actually advised us that he pulled his 2-year-old little brother out from the 18-wheeler wreckage. The 2-year-old did have some severe burns to his body, but he’s at Memorial Hermann and they’re saying he’s expected to be okay.”

Roque said that investigators spoke with the boy, and he told them what had happened and where the family had been headed. KHOU reported that the older boy also made them aware that their mother had been driving an RV ahead of the truck and kept driving, more than likely because she had not noticed the crash. Deputies from the Harris County Sheriff’s office advised that the family had been in the process of moving to a new home in Galveston. Hours later, the deputies were able to reunite the mother and her two sons.

The two children had been taken to a local hospital, Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, to receive treatment. The 5-year-old sustained minor injuries but his little brother was suffering from severe burns.

According to the Chronicle, Dhaval Shah lives in a building close to where the big rig crashed and rushed outside in time to assist the two little boys in escaping the flames of the wreckage. The man said he saw the fire engulfing the truck before he saw the 5-year-old running around. He got to the young boy and quickly found out the situation that the child was in and helped carry away both boys from the burning wreckage.

He was still visibly shaken when he relayed the details to the media.

“I panicked. Nobody was here, no cops, nothing. Not a single person. And then I saw the little kid running around. I just started trembling, I didn’t know what to do.”

The crash forced officials to block the freeway and the service road, and all inbound lanes to the freeway had to be shut down for several hours as crews cleared the scene of the crash. They had not given a timeline for ending the shutdown of the lanes, but shortly before 6 a.m., freeway mainlanes reopened.

A recent analysis of road fatalities by consumer research firm ValuePenguin found that I-45 has the most crashes resulting in a fatality, more than any other highway except California 99. It was reported that in recent years, it has seen 56.5 fatal accidents per 100 miles of roadway. From 2011 to 2015, in Houston alone, there were 51 fatal wrecks.

The police will continue to investigate the details surrounding the crash.

[Feature Image by Jaromir Chalabala/Shutterstock]

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