A Firefighter Heard Her Screaming and Pulled Her From a Burning SUV
When a crash left Latashia Collins trapped inside a burning SUV in Detroit, firefighter Donald Faulkner heard her screams and helped pull her to safety. Against the odds, she survived and her surgeon is calling her recovery a miracle.
Human StoriesGNGV Editorial Team4 min readLast reviewed September 28, 2026
On January 7, 2026, a violent crash with a truck on a Detroit street left Latashia Collins, 52, trapped inside her SUV as it caught fire. The doors were jammed, the flames were spreading, and the 52-year-old woman was pinned inside with no way out on her own. Then a Detroit firefighter named Donald Faulkner arrived.
"I heard her screaming just to help," Faulkner recalled. He methodically checked the doors to find the best way in, then reached Collins and pulled her free. For Faulkner, a Detroit native, the rescue was deeply personal. "I’m from here," he said. "I look at all these citizens like family members."
Collins survived, but her injuries were severe: multiple fractures, third-degree burns, and internal bleeding that required several surgeries. Her recovery was long and difficult, yet her doctors were astonished by her progress. "She really, truly is a miracle," said Dr. David Springstead, noting how far she had come from the night she was pulled from the flames.
For Collins’s family, there was never any question about who deserved the credit. "The firefighters are really the real heroes," her daughter said. Faulkner, characteristically, brushed off the praise. "I’m just doing my job," he said. But behind that modest line lies a simple, staggering truth: a woman who should not have made it out of that SUV is alive today because one man heard her cries and decided, without hesitation, to get her out.
