Firefighters in California Rescue Woman Trapped in Burning Vehicle

BARSTOW, CA – Firefighters in Barstow had rescued a woman trapped inside of a rolled-over vehicle earlier in November that was reportedly engulfed in flames.

The rescue occurred on the evening of November 6th while the Barstow Fire District was clearing a structure fire that was then ongoing.

At approximately 5:27 p.m. that evening, reports came in regarding a vehicle roll-over roughly two miles away from the structure fire “on the Montara Rd off-ramp from the EB I-40,” according to reports.

When Barstow firefighters arrived at the scene of the vehicle roll-over, they’d found that Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) were already working on extinguishing the vehicle fire.

Barstow Fire Protection District Chief Nick DiNapoli said that firefighters weren’t initially notified that a woman and a child were trapped inside of the vehicle at the time of the response.

“We weren’t aware that his mother was in there. There was no report that there were people trapped initially…The son self-extricated, upon arrival from the fire department, through the upper window on the driver’s side.”

Chief DiNapoli said that after the boy got himself out of the burning vehicle, the boy told him that his mother was still trapped inside the car.

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“I just saw him extremely grief-filled; he was just very upset. I walked up to him, and he said, ‘my mom’s still inside!’ Obviously, we went to work from there.”

While trying to get the woman out of the vehicle, Chief DiNapoli said that he could tell she was still alive due to her having “hand pressed up against the windshield.”

“I was able to – I could confirm that she was tapping on the window, and she was choking on the smoke, and that’s when I started kicking and trying to enter the windshield; I didn’t have a tool on me.”

Being pressed for time, Chief DiNapoli said that firefighters “had to use an ax to finish it because it was so hard” to breach the vehicle windshield. The chief added that an MCLB firefighter “cut his hand pretty severely trying to help pull the windshield out” and removed the two by hand.

Chief DiNapoli went into the back row of the vehicle to get ahold of the trapped woman and said he “started to pull her to the window to where other firefighters were, and then they helped me get her through the window.”

According to reports, both the woman and her child only suffered minor injuries and “refused treatment and transport,” according to reports.