Off-Duty Border Patrol Agent Uses Bowling Ball To Save Man From Fiery Crash

An off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent saved a man's life using a bowling ball in Farmington Hills on Saturday, July 31.

According to a news release from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, off-duty agent John Leslie was driving down Northwestern Highway when he noticed a vehicle on fire on the side of the road.

Leslie is a trained EMT and rushed over to the scene to see if anyone needed help. Luckily he stopped to check on the scene because two men told him the driver was trapped inside the fiery vehicle.

Leslie jumped into action to try and save the driver. The passenger's front door was destroyed in the crash, but he was able to crawl into the back of the vehicle to try and get the driver out. Due to the vehicle's damage, he couldn't pull the driver out from the back seat. Leslie saw a bowling ball in the back and used it to break the driver's side window to extract the driver. After hitting the car multiple times with the ball, he could finally reach in and open the driver's door to rescue him.

"If it weren't for the bowling ball, I'm not sure how I would have gotten the window smashed to get the guy out," Leslie said. "That ball saved his life."

Just seconds after Leslie pulled the man to safety; a small explosion happened in the vehicle. Leslie triaged the man until police and fire arrived on the scene.

"Every day across America, our Border Patrol agents, without regard for their own safety, risk their lives to save others," Acting Chief Patrol Agent Robert B. Simon said. "I could not be more proud of John and how quickly he jumped in to save this man's life. If he did not react so quickly, the outcome would have been very different."