Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx has played super villains and antiheroes on screen. The role of super hero he apparently saved for real life.
Foxx and the victim’s father, who met and talked Tuesday, said that Foxx and one other person pulled a man from his burning truck moments before it became engulfed in flames near Foxx’s Southern California home.
The California Highway Patrol said the pickup went off the road in unincorporated Ventura County then went into a ditch, rolling over multiple times and becoming engulfed in flames with a male driver trapped inside.
Foxx said he heard the crash from his house, called 911, and ran to the scene. He said another man, an off-duty paramedic who was driving by, had large EMT scissors that the two used to break the truck’s window, cut the man’s seatbelt and pull him out.
Foxx said “within five seconds” the truck went up in flames.
Foxx said he told the man, “You’ve got to help me get you out, because I don’t want to have to leave you. You’ve got angels around you.”
“I don’t look at it as heroic,” Foxx told a group of reporters after meeting with Brad Kyle, the father of the 32-year-old victim Brett Kyle. “I just look at it like, you know, you just had to do something. And it all just worked out.”
Brad Kyle said he had been shown surveillance video of the crash scene, and he saw several cars passing by without helping.
“I just kept watching it and going ‘My god, my god, he didn’t have to do a thing,’ ” Kyle said, breaking into tears as he spoke. “I think we all hope that we can do something when the time is there. But the question is, do we act or do we fear for our own life? He did not.”
Brett Kyle has broken bones and a punctured lung, but he is expected to survive.
The CHP couldn’t confirm Foxx’s involvement, but the agency did say two witnesses helped extricate the driver, giving similar details to Foxx’s account. His role in the rescue was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.
The name of the paramedic who stopped and helped was not immediately available.
Foxx, who won an Academy Award for playing Ray Charles in 2004’s “Ray,” played the villain Electro in 2014’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and the title renegade slave in 2012’s “Django Unchained.”
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
I agree with your standards & wish others would abide as a personal way of life to set an example for everyone!
Congratulations to Mr. Foxx and the other bystander who helped save a man’s life.
Nice to see there are some Decent Hollywood folks !
God Bless Jamie Foxx, He should get an Academy Award for this act.
I read something like this, and I think about the NSA getting a smidgen of common sense and wanting to take small knives off the prohibited list, and then getting shot down by all the Chicken Littles in this country. I particularly remember one commenter wondering why ANYONE would need to carry a knife. This man was lucky he didn’t crash in an area dominated by these kinds of people.
I always thought Foxx was special. He was terrific in “Collateral” with Tom Cruise. Now he’s a hero in his own right.
Some people may think this was no special act, but that vehicle could have caught fire at any time and killed all three of them. Mr. Kyle can thank God for those two men appearing when they did. These guys are heroes!
Have always liked Jamie Foxx. Now he is a hero to me Bless you and the EMT., Mr Foxx!