MESA, AZ — Body camera video shows the moments a Chandler motorcycle officer, an off-duty firefighter, and a handful of good Samaritans saved a driver trapped in a truck after a fiery rollover crash.
The crash shut down a portion of U.S. 60 near Greenfield Road in Mesa Tuesday morning.
Chandler Officer Brian Larison and an off-duty firefighter quickly jumped into action to help.
On Wednesday, ABC15 was the first to speak with the woman who was trapped in the burning truck. We spoke to her after she saw the video of her rescue on ABC15's social media.
"I thought I was going to burn alive in there," said Aymee Ruiz through the tears. "It was so hard just living in that kind of fear and having to depend on others to try and rescue you."
The Arizona Department of Public Safety says seven vehicles were involved in the crash.
DPS says a cement mixer truck rear-ended a pickup truck that had either slowed or stopped due to traffic congestion, causing the pickup truck to catch fire. The investigation is still ongoing, and no charges have been filed.
Officer Larison broke the truck’s window and an off-duty firefighter helped pull Ruiz to safety before the fire engulfed the vehicle.
Ruiz was checked out at a hospital before going home and hugging her family that same night.
"We've got you. We've got you," said Officer Larison in that body camera video to Ruiz. It is a video she was watched more than 30 times.
"I'm thankful to be here," Ruiz said with her hands over her face. "Everybody is saying... everybody is literally telling me how lucky I am to be here."
Watch Ruiz's full interview with ABC15's Megan Thompson in the player below:
The body camera video replays on her phone and in her mind ever since she saw that cement truck come toward her in her rearview mirror.
"I was like... 'What do you do?' So, I closed my eyes," Ruiz recalled. "I closed my eyes.... held on tight to my steering wheel and just hoped for the best."
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The truck flipped onto its side. Her seatbelt, thankfully, kept her in place.
It was a short moment of relief before another look behind her.
"When I turned around to look, there's fire," Ruiz said.
As she was trapped, her eyelashes were singed off and her hair was frayed. The following day, she showed broken-up pieces of her once-long dark hair. Even though she washed it, her hair still smelled of smoke.
Ruiz said she couldn't shake the memory when she tried to close her eyes Tuesday night, unable to stop replaying that morning commute.
So, Ruiz keeps turning to that video as evidence that this was not a nightmare. She lived it.
But she survived it.
"That's why I keep re-watching the video. I just need to see it for myself. That's what makes it so hard," Ruiz said. "This was like real life. It was real and I could have been dead. A second longer... a minute longer... I would have burned alive and that was truly scary."
Ruiz and her three children had just returned from a trip to Disneyland. She and her husband are about to celebrate 10 years together. The life she wanted to keep living flashed before her eyes as she was trapped in that burning car.
Immediately following the collision, she called her husband to tell him she was in a crash. But he then had to listen for seven minutes as she dropped the phone before the flames charred it.
"For him to hear me on the phone... screaming for my life and for the phone to just completely cut off... I couldn't imagine what my husband was feeling," Ruiz said.
As she was inside the truck, she did not know two heroes arrived at the scene. Ruiz thought everyone was giving up on getting her out. She recalls seeing through the smoke that those good Samaritans were stepping away.
"Here, here, here! Get out of the way," screamed Officer Larison on that body camera video.
Watch extended body camera video of the rescue in the player below.
As Ruiz now knows from that video, everyone was getting out of the way for him and the off-duty firefighter.
"We hear that officer say in this video too, 'I got you. I got you.' Do you remember hearing those words," asked ABC15's Megan Thompson.
"Yeah," Ruiz said. "That's when I was like slowly waking up and seeing my truck in flames and just hearing him say that and then me turning around to him and just like clinging on to him and all his heavy gear... and just feeling that comfort from him and feeling that safety..."
Officer Larison is the one who called Ruiz's husband back, telling him that his wife made it out alive.
"The thought of a woman's life perishing by flame... I'm not going to let this happen," Officer Larison told ABC15 Tuesday.
Two days after the rescue, Ruiz was able to reunite with Chandler Police Officer Brian Larison and Peoria Firefighter Asa Paguia.
"For them to get me out was truly incredible... just amazing and I'm just so happy to be able to be here to be with my kids and hug them tonight... just awesome," Ruiz said. "Awesome."
ABC15 also reached out to DPS to see if any drivers involved in the crash will face charges.
A spokesperson responded back, writing, "The report has not been completed at this time. The investigation is ongoing."
ABC15 will follow up and bring any updates as they become available.
