NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Kai Tomas was one of a number of people who came to help after a fiery car crash on Granby Street in Norfolk injured three people over the weekend.
The crash happened Sunday evening in the 6100 block of Granby Street and involved an overturned vehicle. According to Norfolk Police, two people have life-threatening injuries and a third has non life-threatening injuries.
Tomas, a Norfolk resident, heard the crash and came to help.
“I was hanging out with some friends for a birthday party, and we heard a loud explosion, went outside on our balcony and noticed the crash,” Tomas said. “I’ve seen a few accidents, but I’ve never seen one that bad.”
Witnesses say the overturned SUV ran off the road, went airborne and landed in a parking lot where it hit other parked cars. It then caught on fire, and Tomas and his friend sprang into action.
“I was a little hesitant to just run straight in, but then I noticed that their car was on fire as well, and I just — I wasn’t going to sit there and watch two people burn to death,” Tomas said.
Tomas, who owns a self-defense school, explained he used his own training in the moment he and his friend pulled the victims from the car.
“Seconds count, whether that’s a bleed out or someone burning or suffocating from smoke, and you don’t really have a whole lot of time to think, and I didn’t, I just reacted,” Tomas said.
Tomas added that others decided to do something at that moment as well.
“People in our apartment complex and the surrounding houses started coming out, and they all pitched in and helped,” Tomas said. “There were people spraying the fire with their kitchen fire extinguishers and everything they had. I do think that the entire community that helped out should be commended, because it was a team effort. It wasn’t just me and it wasn’t just my friend. It was dozens and dozens of people that ran to the fire to help these people.”
He added he hopes that those who hear about this story will not just be a bystander in a situation like this.
“I don’t consider myself a hero,” Tomas said. “I just think that I acted with the base level of training that I have and that I truly hope, if I had a loved one or myself was trapped in a vehicle like that, somebody would reach in and grab me out as well.”
A police spokesperson confirmed to 10 On Your Side that the incident remains an active investigation, and charges are pending the outcome.
