2 bystanders rescue driver after SUV crashes into tree in Puyallup

Two bystanders rescued a driver from a small SUV that crashed into a tree and caught fire Wednesday night in Puyallup.

Central Pierce Fire and Rescue crews responded to the Puyallup crash at approximately 10:42 p.m. near 5th St. NW and W Stewart Ave.

The bystanders had already helped pull the driver from the burning SUV before firefighters arrived. Crews extinguished the flames, evaluated the driver, and transported her to the hospital, officials said in a post on X.

“We want to recognize the two bystanders who stepped in to help someone in a dangerous situation,” the post stated. “Their quick actions helped get the driver out of the burning vehicle before firefighters arrived.”

The Puyallup Police Department is investigating the SUV crash.

“These passersby are truly the heroes in this story,” Puyallup Police Capt. Jeremy Hedrick said. “Hearing a collision, instead of just recording it with their cell phones, they take action, and they go and actually pull this person out of a burning vehicle, putting themselves at risk.”

“It took some serious courage from these two people,” he added. “Both decided to work together and approach a burning vehicle and then pull someone out of it. It’s heroic.”

But Dorothy Graham, one of the bystanders who helped rescue the driver, was modest about her role.

“I don’t know about that,” Graham said. “Very kind words, but I would just hope somebody would do it for me if I was in that situation, you know? And I just did what I thought was right. ”

Graham, who lives about a block-and-a-half away from the scene, had just gotten home from grocery shopping when the crash happened.

“I heard this big crash. I mean, like loud, big crash, and so I went running from the back of the yard over to where the vehicle was in the process of calling 911, and there’s a lady in there, and there was another gentleman who was trying to help her get out of the vehicle,” she told KIRO Newsradio. “That’s when I saw that there was fire underneath the vehicle, and so I hollered to him, ‘Hey, there’s the car’s on fire!”

Graham said the woman was not moving, so she went over and helped the man get her out.

“We didn’t think, we just did,” she said.

All the while, the flames were getting closer and closer to all three of them.

“We were right there,” she said. “It could have very easily, you know, gone a different direction. I was just worried that it was so engulfed that it was going to explode.”

After they got the woman out of the vehicle, Graham said the woman, who police say was highly intoxicated, tried to record the scene with her phone.

Driver arrested for DUI; no injuries reported

The driver, a 25-year-old Arizona woman, was not hurt, nor were the two bystanders who saved her.

“She was very intoxicated. It appeared very challenging to communicate,” Hedrick told KIRO Newsradio. “She denied initially even being in the car, but unfortunately for her, the two people who saved her were very much able to say that she had been in the driver’s seat of the car.”

The woman was arrested for DUI. She was the only person in the SUV.

Last night at approximately 10:42 PM, Central Pierce Fire & Rescue crews responded to a vehicle fire near 5th St NW and West Stewart in Puyallup.

When crews arrived, they found a vehicle that had crashed into a tree and caught fire. Two bystanders had already helped pull the driver, the vehicle’s only occupant, to safety before emergency crews arrived.

Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, evaluated the driver, and transported her to the hospital.

We want to recognize the two bystanders who stepped in to help someone in a dangerous situation. Their quick actions helped get the driver out of the burning vehicle before firefighters arrived.

The scene was turned over to the Puyallup Police Department for investigation.

— Central Pierce Fire & Rescue (@CentralPierce) October 15, 2026

Frank Lenzi is the News Director for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here.

Follow @FrankLenziKIRO