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-
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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