(CNN) — It was a heroic moment caught on tape.
A police officer in Cape May, New Jersey, ran up to a burning pickup truck and pulled out its unconscious driver, then ran back toward the blaze to search for other possible passengers.
“A million things were going through my head. I wasn’t sure if anyone was in the vehicle. If someone was, I just wanted to get them out,” patrolman Scott Krissinger told CNN’s “New Day” Thursday.
The incident, captured on a police dash cam, happened Monday evening in West Cape May.
Police received a call about a car burning on the roadway, with a person possibly inside.
Krissinger was the first to arrive at the scene. He ran to the driver’s side of the burning Chevy Colorado truck.
“When I opened the door I didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “I couldn’t really see anything. I just reached my hand in and felt him and pulled him out.”
The video shows the officer dragging the driver away from the truck before running back to the burning vehicle and opening the passenger side door.
He wanted to make sure that no one else was inside, he said.
There was fear in the back of his mind, and adrenaline, too. Krissinger can’t remember how hard it was to pull the man out.
The driver, 61-year-old Gerald K. Ferrill, is hospitalized in critical but stable condition, police said.
Krissinger is being called a hero for saving the driver from certain death inside the vehicle, but he rejects the label.
“I think any police officer would have done the same thing,” he said.
A witness told police that prior to the fire, the truck was driving with a flat tire and loud sounds were coming from the engine.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, police said.
As for Krissinger, he said he hopes for a speedy recovery for Ferrill, and hopes to meet him someday.
