NJ Cops May18 | Page 46

Smash-and-grab rescue Roselle Park Local member reacts quickly to save man from car fire n BY NICK SWEDBERG With a sudden crash, Officer Robert Harms’ hatchet smash- es the rear passenger-side window of the black, four-door car parked on a Roselle Park street. Video shows flames and smoke pouring from the engine compartment as Harms circles around to the driver’s side. “Is there somebody in there?” Harms can be heard shouting. Body camera footage of the dramatic scene went viral after being posted to YouTube. Harms and other officers from the Roselle Park Local 27 helped pulled the disoriented man from the smoke-filled car in which he had been sleeping near his home on May 5. “Not being a fireman, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” Harms explained, remembering the chaos when arriving on the scene. “You see movies of cars blowing up. What do we do standing around when one is on fire?” The call came in of a car engulfed in flames with someone possibly inside, said Harms, who has 14 years on the job. “Usually, you would think for a fire, you’d grab the fire extin- guisher,” he recalled. “For some reason, I grabbed the ax first,” he said. Thinking someone might be trapped inside, Harms started smashing the heavily tinted windows. He went to the passen- 46 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ MAY 2018 ger side first, busting open the front window in hopes of seeing someone. But the smoke was too thick. Harms then went to the driver’s side and opened the rear door to help ventilate smoke. He returned to the passenger side once again and “saw a silhouette of a person in the driver’s seat.” Firefighters had arrived at that point. Opening the driver-side door, Harms and Deputy Fire Chief Steven Thompson grabbed for the man seated inside. The fire continued to spread. Heat caused the front tires to expand and burst. Flames were burning through the floorboards. “As we’re pulling on his arm, he’s grabbing on to the steering wheel,” Harms detailed. According to investigators, the man’s foot likely was revving the engine when he fell asleep with the car running, Harms said. The revving likely caused the engine to overheat and sparked a fire. The man reportedly was disoriented and initially resisted when Harms responded. Apparently, he did not realize he was in danger. Harms said the man was treated at a local hospital and released the next day. He knows it could have been much worse. “It’s miraculous that no one was burned during this incident,” Harms observed. d