Thomas Hughes 
BROOKLYN — An off-duty deputy chief with the New York City Fire Department risked his life—and his family’s vacation to Disney World—to save a man trapped in a burning vehicle on the Belt Parkway this week, according to the fire department.
George Healy, a 34-year veteran of the fire department, was setting out with his family on an 18-hour drive to the Magical Kingdom on Monday morning, when he came upon a two-vehicle collision that had stopped traffic on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.
Healy said in an Instagram post shared by the fire department that he noticed a fire burning in a vehicle’s engine compartment and starting to spread to the windshield.
A man was unconscious in the backseat, still in his seatbelt, but the passenger door was caved in and inoperable, Healy said.
An NYPD officer smashed the driver’s window, and Healy went into the vehicle’s backseat.
“As I’m trying to disentangle him from the seat belt, the car is starting to fill with smoke from the fire,” he said. “The fire in the engine compartment was starting to overtake the vehicle and the situation was rapidly deteriorating. If I didn’t remove him in fairly short order, the fire was going to overwhelm the car.”
Healy said he was able to free the man’s limp body from his seatbelt and pull him out with the help of the police officer.
The victim was taken to NYU Langone-Brooklyn in stable condition.
Other drivers stopped at the scene asked Healy why he would do something so dangerous.
“I’m a New York City firefighter,” he told them. “That’s what New York City firefighters do.”
