Motorist feels ‘blessed’ after saving man from fiery wreck

CAMARILLO, Calif. — Bryan Lutz never thought twice after seeing a head-on collision in Oxnard in early January.

Lutz, 38, had just left work and was driving home to Ventura when another car zoomed past him. Lutz said the Nissan 350Z hit the rear bumper of a vehicle in front of him before veering off into oncoming traffic, barreling head-on into a pickup truck.

Lutz reckons the truck must have been traveling around 45 mph at the time of the Jan. 3 collision. The car hit the truck with such force that it brought it to a dead stop, he said.

"It hit it with tremendous force right in front of me," he said. Lutz stopped. He got out of his vehicle and ran over to the Nissan.

"I checked on the driver's pulse, but he was gone, he was dead," said Lutz, who works as a delivery truck driver.

He then rushed over to the truck. He tried to pull the driver, Reynaldo Lugo, out of the truck.

"But the driver's door was pinned shut, he said.

Lutz said Lugo told him his feet were stuck under the truck's dashboard. At about the same time, flames were coming out of the truck's engine compartment. The fire soon made its way into the truck's cab.

Lutz, who is 6-feet-6 and weighs around 250 pounds, reached inside the truck and gave Lugo a bear hug. The next thing Lutz knew, he was on the ground holding Lugo.

"I looked down to make sure his foot was there," he said. "It was."

A couple of people then carried Lugo to the sidewalk while Lutz continued to lay on the ground. Lutz said as he laid there, "I realized my hands were burned and I had melted plastic on my sweatshirt from the fire."

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A father of two children, Lutz said his wife lost her composure when he told her later what he'd done.

"She asked me, 'What the hell were you doing?' " he recalled. "But there was no way I could just stand there and watch a guy die in a fire."

Lutz remained at the scene of the accident while Lugo was taken to the hospital.

He recalls one of Lugo's coworkers approaching him at the scene "with tears in his eyes," thanking him for saving Lugo.

That coworker was Butch Spaulding, a safety manager at Taft Electric, a Ventura-based company where Spaulding has worked for 30 years. Spaulding had seen Lugo earlier in the day just before Lugo left Taft to go home.

"I raced down there when I heard what had happened," Spaulding said.

Once at the scene, he met Lutz.

"He's a hero pure and simple," said Spaulding.

Lutz, meanwhile, said he feels "blessed that I was there."

"There's nothing like feeling that you're somebody's guardian angel. I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if I'd just stood there and did nothing and watch someone die trapped by fire."