STEINBACH, Man. — A Manitoba trucker helped rescue a Detroit police officer from certain death last week, but now the saved cop is destined for almost certain firing.

Wally Senkow of Steinbach was heading through Michigan on his way to the Ambassador Bridge when he noticed a damaged panel truck on the side of the road.

Nearby was a smashed police car, with a person sitting still behind the wheel.

As Senkow, 56, told the Winnipeg Free Press he stopped his truck and ran to help. Senkow said another motorist at the scene suggested they leave the officer in the car until professional help arrived but Senkow thought better of it.

“I said it’s going to blow up so it doesn’t matter what his injuries are, we have to get him out of it.,” he told the newspaper.

They pulled the driver out and sure enough, the car blew up.

Only when Senkow finished his trip did he learn that the officer he pulled from the car — a sergeant the police have not yet named — was probably drunk and stoned at the time of the accident.

And the Detroit police chief promised afterward that if an investigation proves that the officer was in fact impaired, he will be fired.

The police report stated that the cruiser had lost control and hit the divider and then the panel truck before coming to a stop and bursting into flames.

See local news coverage of the incident here:

As Senkow told the Winnipeg paper, “It’s almost tabloid material. If somebody had told me you’ll be driving in Detroit, pull a cop from a car on fire who has been boozing, I’d have said ‘What are you smoking?’ "