after midnight, bermudez is doing traffic enforcement. she clocks a car doing 48 in a 30-mile per hour zone. he pulls into a parking lot. we re now at 2410 east riverside. still advising. ten-four. all right, let me see the other hand. where are you all going? where are you coming from? my mom s house. the officer thinks the driver maybe impaired so she radios for backup. i noticed his eyes were really glassy. that s where i m going right now, is my mom s house. you know where it s at, right? that s where i m going. i knew the driver. i recognized his face. i just couldn t remember his name. you have your i.d.? no, i surely don t, ma am. how come you don t have your i.d. with you? remember, i just barely got out. you barely got out from where? then it hits her. wait a minute. this is armando torres.
officer bermudez sees the driver going for something. she thinks a weapon, so she reaches her arm into the car and the driver panics. but loosen your arm. i know, i know. what are you doing, man? loosen your arm. i know. i am. i knew that if i didn t take action, the possibility that he could come out and assault me or kill me was pretty great. from there, the situation escalates further when the driver takes off with officer bermudez still reaching inside the car. [ screams ] all i remember is hearing the engine rev really loud and the car begin to accelerate really fast, and i m unable to come out of the vehicle. it s a moment of sheer terror for bermudez and one that s
the officer is working the day shift when a strange call comes over the radio. the call come up that there was a vehicle driving northbound on grossbeck and they stated that somebody was hanging out of the vehicle. as i drive over to where they said they were near, i happened to be a few blocks away. and i drove up and saw the vehicle in front of me. i saw him sticking his feet out of the driver s door. our first thought was that somebody was being either kidnapped or something else and they were hanging trying to get out of the vehicle. it was something i d never seen in over 20 years of police work. he s basically sort of holding on to the steering wheel. he s got the door open and he s got his legs hanging out of the car. that s when i realized he didn t have brakes. the 4,000 pound pickup truck is barreling straight toward a busy intersection at 45 miles per hour. he knows he has to act fast. first thing i was trying to think of is how we could stop the motor vehicle. but w
seemed like plastic. it was the side air bag. i cut it. that s when i first started talking to mr. barnes. are you the only one in here? i can t breathe. get me out. are you the only one in there? yeah. in that instant, in my mind, i knew i had to do everything i could to try to get him out. burning alive is one of the worst ways to die. i need help. i can t breathe. desperate to get him out of the car, the officers try to open the doors with their bare hands. but the smoke and heat are too intense and the driver is pinned. help! he was wedged kind of under the steering wheel and across the center console and behind the air bag. and there s just no way, i couldn t get him out. just could not pull him out. i can t breathe. get me out! every second that went by, it was getting hotter and hotter. horrified at seeing someone
that last time before i moved in, we didn t have very much time. [ screams ] we couldn t come straight out a window, we had to go toward the back of the car. i was getting really tired. i remember feeling and twisting just a little bit and he finally moved. finally, he started coming out. i can t breathe. it was like a magic moment occurred. we were able to both get in at the same time, and all of a sudden he moved. whatever had been pinning him wasn t any more. the driver, sean barnes, is badly burned and his legs are on fire when the officers pull him out of the car. 353, please. we ve extracted one. at that point, we re all in the bottom of the ditch, the grass