Phillipe Bittar jumped out of his brother Raphael’s moving vehicle and ran to help the woman escape.
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That’s when Bittar took the situation into his own hands.
A woman in a burning vehicle was rescued by a teen. As they approached a crowd filming and snapping photos, they realized a woman was trapped inside the auto, which had burst into flames after hitting the gas pump.
Studies on the Bystander Effect show that with the advent of smartphones, people shift to onlooker status and become preoccupied with capturing the moment for social-sharing purposes. Bittar told Fox12 News, “There was like six bystanders just videotaping like oh man she needs to get some help”. Saturday when they saw flames and smoke at a gas station and pulled over. He said, “There wasn’t a whole lot of people trying to get involved”. “So I grabbed her by the shoulders and I kind of just picked her up and took her out and walked away”.
Reacting to now being called a ‘hero, ‘ the youth said: ‘I just did what any person’s supposed to do.’.
The woman had crashed into a petrol pump, but he didn’t think twice before breaking a window with a single punch and dragging her out. Fire officials say a gas station employee prevented the incident from escalating by quickly shutting off the main gas supply.
Fire crews later said in a statement that Bittar’s actions were nothing short of ‘heroic’.
Reported by Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, the woman suffered from smoke inhalation and was taken to the hospital. The spokesperson stated that had Bittar not pulled the woman out of the auto, she most likely would not have survived.
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Right now the cause of the fire is being investigated. “She was really shocked, I saw her later when I was getting attended by the paramedics, she said thank you and gave me a hug”.
