At approximately 12:30p PST today, Celai West and her mom, Linda Ligons-West had to make an emergency exit from their burning vehicle.
West’s mom, Linda, explained “I turned on the A/C but only hot air was coming out. As soon as it began to cool, I noticed the car was slowing down so I looked at the temperature gage. It wasn’t even half way but I decided to pull over anyways.” Suddenly, Linda stated that the car quickly filled with white smoke and she seen flames coming from under the hood while still driving!
“As soon as I pulled over, I instructed Celai to unbuckle herself and get out the car. Unfortunately, neither of us were able to grab our phones to call for help”.
As they stood and watched their car go up in flames, they spotted a man (literally through the flames) running towards them. He made sure they were OK then instructed them to follow him to his vehicle, which was parked in front of their burning car. “Celai was unable to walk because she was barefoot. The ground was really hot and covered with broken glass and gravel but her slide-ons fell off as she was getting out the car. This complete stranger immediately ran back to the burning car, opened the rear door, grabbed the shoes and phone and ran them to Celai. He then asked where my phone was, ran back to the burning car and grabbed my phone as well.
He escorted us to his car and called 9-1-1 for help. He was kind enough to stay with us until help arrived and made sure we were safely inside a police car with cool air before leaving. I don’t know who this man is but he’s definitely our guardian angel.” says Linda.
Despite the traumatic experience, Celai is very grateful and thankful for this stranger.” He was the only one who pulled over to help us. I’m just so happy that there are people like him in this world”.
Whomever you are. Wherever you are, thank you so much from our entire family.