SHELBURNE, Ont. — It was in the wee hours of Friday the 13th.

Veteran tractor-trailer driver Mel Farnell was loaded and heading east on Highway 9, en route to Toronto. Suddenly a westbound Chevy Cavalier crossed the highway and crashed head on into Farnell’s rig. If it hadn’t been for Farnell’s lightning-quick roadside heroics, the car driver would be dead.

Moments after the collision, Farnell, 65, leapt from his cab, fire extinguisher in hand and ran to where the car driver was trapped behind the wheel.

Smoke poured from the wreck and the floor mats were on fire.

"There wasn’t time to play around. As fast as I’d put the flames out, it’d flare up again. I’d put it out, and it’d start," a very modest Farnell recently told todaystrucking.com of the incident. (Farnell figures that even though the engine was wrecked, the electronic fuel pump kept running, hence the gasoline fire.)

The car driver was conscious but yelling for help and Farnell realized that the driver’s door was stuck closed.

Fortunately, the window was down a few inches. Farnell grabbed the glass and yanked it out and then reached in and pulled the car driver to safety.

“Good thing he was still awake. The size of him, I wouldn’t have been able to get him outta there without him helping me.”

By the time the fire crew and ambulance arrived, the car was engulfed in flames. Another passerby helped Farnell pull the driver further from the accident, and then the injured man was taken to hospital.

“And that was the last I heard,” Farnell said. “Who he was I do not know; I just hope the man’s alright..”

Farnell estimates the damage to his rig was “somewhere in the high-40s, maybe $50-thousand," and it had to be returned to the yard. So he waited for several hours at the scene while the authorities cleaned up the site and a replacement rig was delivered so he could continue with his delivery.

“I’ve been driving 49 years and I’ve had lots of close calls but never one like that,” he says.

When our reporter suggested that other less-conscientious people might shy away from getting so close to the accident, Farnell said, “I’m no hero. I just did what had to be done.”

Then he added, “there was one clown who drove up, I think he was in a Bronco or something, and as soon as he saw what was going on, he turned around and drove away.

“Whoever he is I hope he never needs somebody to drag him out of a burning car some day.”