Officer yanks motorcyclist from container truck crash in split-second rescue

The incident occurred on Nov. 25 in the province’s Xuan Tho Commune while a task force from Ho Chi Minh City’s Police Department of Fire Fighting and Prevention was traveling to assist residents in flood-affected areas there.

The team had stopped their vehicle on a slope along National Highway 1 and activated their warning signals while awaiting local guides to lead them further into the flooded zone.

At that time, Corporal Nguyen Mai Thi, 21, was stationed at the rear of the vehicle to observe and warn oncoming traffic.

It was then that Thi spotted a container truck speeding downhill and swerving past multiple motorcycles, with the driver appearing to have lost control. Ahead of the truck, a female 12th grader, later identified as Thu Tram, was riding her motorcycle directly in the path of the imminent danger, completely unaware of the speeding truck behind her.

“The girl didn’t see the truck coming from behind, so I just ran as fast as I could to pull her out of the way,” Thi recalled.

With no hesitation, he dashed forward and pulled the student toward the roadside barrier. Just one or two seconds later, the container truck struck the side of her motorcycle.

After hitting the motorcycle, the container truck continued onto the sidewalk, where it broke a utility pole and struck Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Quanh Minh, the task force commander. The truck finally stopped after sliding another 100 meters.

Corporal Thi brought Thu Tram to safety on the roadside and, together with his colleagues, took Minh for emergency medical care.

Thi, who joined the fire service after graduating from high school, credited his life-saving reflexes to his two years of intense training. “When I saw the danger, I just thought about saving her as quickly as possible,” he said.

Moved by the officer’s bravery, the student, Tram, wrote a letter of thanks to the unit. “Without officer Thi, I don’t know if I would still be alive today,” she wrote.