Belleville crash: Driver rescued from flaming truck after allegedly drunk driving

According to officials, the driver’s car flipped and caught fire close to Belleville after colliding with an embankment.

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    A man was trapped in a flaming truck after a crash near Belleville.
    
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    Residents and police ran out to help the driver.
    
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    Police say the man was drunk driving.
    

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  A man was trapped in a flaming truck after a crash near Belleville.
  
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  Residents and police ran out to help the driver.
  
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  Police say the man was drunk driving.
  

FOX 2, Augusta TWP, Mich.On Willis Road, a motorist was dragged from a burning truck in a collision that frightened the local community.

What they’re saying:

According to officials, the driver’s car flipped and caught fire close to Belleville after colliding with an embankment.

After two in the morning on Friday, this Ford F-350 crashed in a ditch on Rawsonville Road in Augusta Township, not far from Carol Hicks’ house. Her grandson rushed in to inform her of the collision.

“It woke me up and then my grandson came running up here,” she explained. “He said there s an accident, there s a car or a truck on fire in the ditch out there.”

After losing her son to alcohol, she found the crash to be a poignant occasion.

Look more closely:

Cellphone footage of the burning truck and her family racing to rescue the trapped driver was posted by a FOX 2 viewer.

Hicks also posted the video she took of the event, which is shown above.

Lt. Rene Gonzalez of Michigan State Police, who is looking into the collision, stated that neighbors claim the 24-year-old driver was drinking at a tavern directly up the street from the collision.

“Left the area, high rate of speed, but before that doing donuts in the parking lot of this bar,” Gonzalez stated.

According to authorities, the driver lost control of the vehicle while speeding, causing it to fall into a ditch, shoot into the air, and hit a tree.

Next steps:

According to police, the collision might have been fatal if first responders had not shown there when they did.

According to MSP officials, this would be the man’s third drunk driving incident in less than three years, but no charges had been brought as of Friday.