Leo Gillick
A young football player studying as an army cadet was filmed taking the initiative when he saw a burning car, saving a man’s life by pulling him to safety.
Videos by Rare
Larry Pickett Sr and his son were driving in Orange County, N.Y, when they spotted the crashed car. The vehicle had hit a pole carrying power lines and burst into flames. As the car burned, the father and son ran to the rescue. His daughter, in a morbid Nightcrawler fashion, filmed the potentially fatal incident.
Army Football Son Runs to Rescue: Larry Pickett Jr., a sophomore at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, jumped into action. Rather than stand around and film a man being burned to death, he ran to his rescue. Despite the car being wrapped in power lines and burning, he and his father risked it all to pull the man to safety.
- Footage captured by his bystanding sister shows him clambering over dangerous cables. The father and his football player son reach into the burning car to pull the man to safety. They carry him to the far side of the road. The burning car was only minutes from being engulfed by a fireball.
Proud Dad Of Football Player Son
The father took to social media to share the footage of his football player son saving the man from the burning car. The two of them can be seen in the video pulling the man to the other side of the road. The two of them worked together, saving the man’s life. He doesn’t talk about his own bravery, but it’s clear he has led by example.
- “Thank you, Jesus, that this man will live to see another day! I am so grateful for my son LJ for saving his life!” the post begins. “Not only is he making an impact in the classroom and on the football field at the United States Military Academy at West Point, but he’s also making a difference in his community. Just after Midnight, I watched in awe as my son, Larry Pickett Jr., ran toward a burning vehicle, ignoring the downed power lines crackling around it. With immense courage, he pulled a man to safety, saving him from a fiery fate.”
A Staged Event
The post clearly wasn’t written by his father. The original post and the rest of his father’s social media page are carefully manicured in a way only a PR agent would. Even the car crash with the perfectly positioned daughter, well filmed footage, and daring rescue seems a little staged.
- The whole event was captured from three different angles. One by the daughter, who at one point possibly asks the audience to “not swear”, then from a perfectly positioned dash cam, and finally a first-person view of the football player who has taken the time to pull out his own phone to shoot footage of the car accident and the man they just rescued. It’s all a little too clean and performative.
But at least the man in the burning car was safe, thanks to the army football player.
