Friday morning, August 14. About 8:30 a.m. A crash in the 2100 block of South Major Drive. By the time the first Beaumont Police officer arrived, the vehicle's engine compartment was already fully engulfed in flames.

A man who witnessed the crash had not waited for help to arrive. He ran toward the burning wreck, reached through the vehicle's shattered rear window, and began trying to pull a little girl free from a car seat as the fire burned around them.

The responding officer moved in immediately. He handed the Good Samaritan a knife so he could cut through the restraints. Together they got the child out. They got the driver out too. Both survived. 

The Good Samaritan had cuts on his arms and legs from the rescue.

In a moment when seconds mattered, two people, a stranger and an officer, made decisions that most of us never have to make and hope we never will. The child came home.

Beaumont Police have since gone public with their recognition of the Good Samaritan, calling out his split-second decision as the kind of action that made the difference between a close call and something far worse.

The story traveled. News stations across the country picked it up because it is the kind of story that reminds people what human beings are capable of when it counts.

This is Beaumont. Resilient. Resourceful. Relational. A stranger ran toward a fire and a city took note.