BARNEGAT TOWNSHIP, NJ - Barnegat, NJ, police officer Lauren Keilitz can be seen on her squad car's dashcam running without hesitation to a burning car in a driveway on Monday night trying to determin if someone was inside.
A neighbor's wife told Keilitz and her partner, Michael Diblasi, that 57-year-old Mario Dischiavi was in the car. The neighbors heard the man listening to music in the car earlier.
"He falls asleep in the car a couple of times," the neighbor said.
Keilitz couldn't see anyone through the thick smoke when she first opened the passenger door.
"Then the interior light came on and there was someone sitting in the driver's seat," Keilitz said. "He seemed incoherent. He didn't seem aware the car was on fire."
And his door was locked.
Officer Diblasi had gone for something to break the driver side window. Meantime, Dischiavi unlocked his door and Keilitz pulled him to safety without feeling the flames coming from the engine and underneath the car.
"It must have been a second there where the flames kind of parted at that point because we were able to stand him up and get him out without anyone getting burned," Keilitz said.
"She was very courageous. There were flames all around him. So he's very, very lucky," the neighbor said.
And after being treated and released at the hospital, Dischiavi was also grateful.
"He said, 'I just remember I was sitting in the car listening to Johnny Cash, and next thing I know, somebody was pulling me out,'" Keilitz said.