Good Samaritans Save Man from Burning Car

Three Montgomery County men, including a Conroe police officer, are being honored for saving a man who was trapped inside a burning car.

Now the man who survived it all is telling his story to FOX 26 News. Aaron Puffer, 38, was released from Memorial Hermann Hospital Thursday night after more than two weeks of recovery. He still can’t walk. His pelvis, hip, ribs, and arm were broken during a single car crash last month.

Puffer, who suffers from sleep apnea, fell asleep at the wheel on Highway 105 in Montgomery just before midnight on October 24th. His 4-door Pontiac crashed into a concrete culvert, went airborne, and flipped upside down before catching on fire.

“I remember feeling some kind of impact, it was more like a dream,” said Puffer.

He was trapped inside and couldn’t move. The aftermath of the accident was captured on police dash-cam video.

“If you would’ve told me the guy in the video died or was paralyzed I’d believe you,” he said from his hospital room in the Texas Medical Center. “I feel pretty damn lucky.”

Conroe police officer Allan Bell saw the accident and sprang into action.

“When the car exploded and caught fire I said ‘uh oh,’ we might have somebody trapped inside,” said the soft-spoken officer.

Bell, along with two other eye witnesses, Ignacio Dominguez and Michael Jedrzynski, pulled Puffer from the scorching sedan.

“We just saw the car had been flipped over and we just used our instincts,” said Dominguez.

The friends were returning home from a fishing trip when they saw the crash.

“We started feeling heat from the car and realized we need to get him pulled away as far as we can,” said Jedrzynski.

The three heroes were honored Thursday morning by the Conroe Police Department for their courageous effort. Puffer could not attend the ceremony because he was still in the hospital.

“To risk what they have to save a stranger, it’s hard for me to comprehend,” he said.

Puffer still has months of hard work ahead just to walk again. But his doctors expect him to fully recover.

“There’s got to be a reason why I got so lucky. I have a purpose,” he said.

He has a purpose, indeed, and a new perspective on life.

“I would just hope that if something in the future were to happen to someone else that I would have the guts to do what they did,” he said.

Puffer runs youth travel baseball teams in Montgomery and said the heroes’ children can have free lifetime baseball lessons.

Puffer was not wearing his seat belt at the time of the accident. He plans to buy an oxygen sleeping machine to help with his sleep apnea.