At first Colby Weinrauch thought the smoke was from a forest fire, maybe started by campers.

It was 5:50 a.m. and he had just left his home in Nelson, headed for work in Rossland. Smoke was rising from the strip of forest below Highway 3A, east of the Taghum Bridge. As he got closer he noticed the flames were tree height. He called 911 to report a forest fire.

"I was getting out of my truck and the 911 lady is like, 'Do you want police, fire, or ambulance?' And I look down there, and I see a car, and I'm like, 'We need them all. Send them all.'"

The car was in flames, and so was the forest behind it. The driver's door was crushed against a tree. Weinrauch broke the back driver's side window with a rock and found an unconscious man in the driver seat, leaning against the door.

"The entire front seat and the passenger seat was fully engulfed in flames ... Stuff started popping – I think the tires started popping and banging right? I was just like, well, we got to go. It's getting hot here. Let's go."

He grabbed the back of the driver's hoodie but it tore off of his body. The only thing left to grab was his hair, which Weinrauch dragged the man out by, from the front seat through the back seat door and onto the ground beside the car.

He thought the man was dead, but then he heard him trying to breathe. At that point another passerby, John Guillemette, arrived.

"Me and Colby just looked at each other," Guillemette said, "and we're like, 'We gotta get him out of there.' And we just picked him up and we moved him six or eight feet, because me and Colby and the kid (the driver) were right beside the car. And the trees are on fire.

"Just the fact that he was breathing was amazing. But it was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. He was not in good shape. He looked pretty well dead."

Sara Cuthbert and Hannah Corfe, nursing students at Selkirk College who were passing by on the highway, saw the flames and stopped.

"As soon as I saw that there was a car, I was like, OK, we're going down there," Cuthbert said. "We need to help."

They helped Weinrauch and Guillemette move the driver further away from the car, onto the rail bed beside the tracks. He was unconscious and gasping for air, said Cuthbert, and it was hard to grasp him and move him because his body was so severely burned.

"I know there's proper ways to lift them," Guillemette said. "But we were right beside the burning car."

Guillemette has advanced first aid training. He and the nurses got to work, holding the driver's head, supporting his neck, keeping his jaw open, checking his pulse, looking for bodily injuries. 

Weinrauch estimates that the time elapsed between getting the victim out of the car and the eventual arrival of paramedics was about 15 minutes that included flames, panic and intense focus.

"Once we got him far enough away, we were more focused on first aid," said Cuthbert. "I didn't even feel the temperature. I wasn't even thinking about the car."

Guillemette said the right people had arrived at the right time.

"We  just went with what we had to work with," he said. "The timing, and everyone had a role, and it worked. The kid is alive."

The next arrival was Dr. Nicholas Sparrow of KERPA, who administered oxygen with the help of the nursing students. Guillemette left the scene at this point. Then the Nelson Fire Department arrived, and after that an ambulance, the RCMP, and the Beasley Fire Department. The fire was being fought while first aid was being administered. They called CPKC rail to ask them to delay any expected trains.

Guillemette said it was Weinrauch's bravery that saved the driver's life.

"It takes some crazy courage just to run down that bank towards that car," he told Weinrauch as they were being interviewed by the Nelson Star. "You put your life at risk just being present at that scene ... My hat is so off to you, man. That was insane. It was the bravest shit anyone could have ever done."

When they first pulled off the road to help, nursing students Cuthbert and Corfe were on their way to the first day of their third-year practicum. They got more practical experience than they had bargained for that day.

"When I think about it," said Cuthbert, "it was definitely a traumatic experience through and through. I've never experienced anything like that in all of my nursing. We usually are in a controlled environment with lots of help, like instructors, physicians, other nurses, equipment."

But Cuthbert said she still feels thankful that she and Corfe were able to contribute.

The rescued driver is in intensive care in a Vancouver hospital being treated for burns, smoke inhalation, and a broken nose. His mother, Kathleen Elias of Nelson, says he is doing well but has a long recovery ahead.

The story of the rescue "makes me cry every time I hear it," she said.

"I don't know how I can repay such kindness, or show my gratitude, but all I know is that I'm so very, very happy that we have my son with us."