A father and his 14-year-old daughter in Cave Creek, Arizona, saw people in distress following a fiery crash and decided to take matters into their own hands, saving half a dozen strangers. Now, they are being hailed as heroes, and rightfully so.
As reported by AZFamily, the incident occurred at around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 16. While travelling on Carefree Highway, Casey and Elianna Reinke noticed a speeding car flying past them, which triggered the subsequent chain of events.
Suddenly, father and daughter observed apparent strobe lights in the sky. It was no natural light display, unfortunately.
Instead, they came across a violent and fiery crash. At that very moment, the Arizona pair knew that they needed to do something to, hopefully, save some lives.
Spawning Into Action
The 14-year-old Elianna took control of the situation, telling her father they needed to help the strangers. While she called 911, she told him he needed to go and help people out of their vehicles, which were slowly becoming engulfed in flames.
Casey listened to his daughter’s command and acted accordingly. First, he managed to pull out an individual from a crashed car. Then, however, he stumbled upon a more serious situation: a truck with five people inside, and fire quickly spreading.
Assisted by two other drivers, Mark and Tim, a “unspoken orchestration” found its genesis, and the three men began to get to work. After an unsuccessful attempt to rescue passengers through broken windows, the team managed to flip the truck and reach them.
Hailed as Heroes
In total, six people were pulled out from the post-crash inferno. They were all successfully transferred to a local hospital by responding firefighters, and all of them are currently recovering.
Jeffrey Johnson, who spoke with AZFamily, revealed that his mother and other relatives were injured in the crash. Relieved by their survival, he expressed his immense gratitude toward the Reinkes, Mark, and Tim.
“I thank the Lord that they were there,” he said. “It’s amazing to hear. To have a group of people that didn’t know each other come together and make that happen in such a quick time… It saved lives.”
Just Playing Their Roles
While the survivors and even the firefighters are extremely impressed and grateful for their heroic deeds, Casey and Elianna Reinke remained grounded. After all, something needed to be done, and they are the ones who responded to the call.
“Nobody I’d trust more,” Casey said about his daughter. Meanwhile, she added, “I just played my role, and he played his role.”
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to raise funds for the burn victims. The Maricoa County Sheriff’s Office has yet to determine what caused the crash.