Mr Heiler launched a rock to break the window. (Representational Image: Unsplash)
A heroic man named Sam Heiler from Arizona pulled two toddlers from a burning car just seconds before it exploded. According to a Fox News report, Sam Heiler and his wife Melissa were driving for a weekend getaway when they spotted a car on fire in Navajo County, Arizona.
The 30-year-old decided to pull over after he noticed the engine of a car ahead of theirs caught fire. Mr Heiler said that the parents of the two girls got out of the front seats of the car and shut their doors, which instantly locked their two girls in the backseat.
Mr Heiler told Fox News Digital, "The parents were freaking out, screaming and punching the windows with their bare hands, both the back windows in front of the babies."
He added, "They had about 20 more seconds until the fire spread from the engine block to the cab. The girls were screaming, the parents were screaming, my wife was screaming-it was bad. When the fire hit the fuel tank it made a legitimate fireball explosion."
"Dad followed suit, but from the panic, attempted to throw rocks at the back windows where the girls would have been covered with glass and a heavy rock had broken through. All the while, the flames had now spread to completely cover the front hood of the car, and the two- and three-year-olds are screaming," she said.
Mr Heiler launched a rock to break the window and open the doors from inside and safely rescue the toddlers.
Once the doors were open, Mr Heiler helped unbuckle the toddlers from their seatbelts and took the help of their Mom and Dad to remove them from the car.
The man told Fox News the area had no cell phone service, but he eventually flagged another driver down using a glow stick he keeps in his car and asked them to call 911 when they regained cell service - about 25 miles further up the road.
The police eventually arrived at the scene.
Melissa Heiler said that her husband's initial instinct was to keep driving after seeing the car pull over.
"But, in that same instant, something came over him, and he felt like he had to stop and see if he could help."