NFL wide receiver K.J. Osborn rescued a man from a blazing vehicle Sunday night alongside three other heroes.
Osborn, 25, was riding in an Uber in Austin, Texas, when the driver suddenly stopped and pointed out a car on fire on the side of the road.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Osborn said Tuesday on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football.”
“The airbags were out, and we didn’t see anybody,” he added. “At that moment, I was thinking the worst. I didn’t think this guy was alive.”
Osborn and the Uber driver ran over to the vehicle and were joined by two more passersby. The Uber driver opened the passenger door, and the group saw a dazed man still alive inside the vehicle.
“We all ran down and we pulled him out of the car,” Osborn said. “I picked him up. He’s bleeding, his blood is on me, and we pick him up. I carried him maybe like 10, 15 yards, and shortly after the police came and the firefighters and everything like that.”
The man was taken to a nearby hospital, and first responders told Osborn and his fellow heroes that they had saved his life.
Osborn said Tuesday that he was shaken up and didn’t sleep well after the rescue.
“We’re professional athletes, but you know, I’m a regular person just like anybody else,” he said. “That wasn’t a game, this is life. This was life or death.”
Osborn recently completed his third season with the Minnesota Vikings, in which he caught 60 passes for 650 yards and five touchdowns. His quarterback, Kirk Cousins, was not surprised by his heroics.
“This is totally on-brand for K.J. Osborn,” he wrote on Twitter. “Just a tremendous person and teammate.”
