Vikings player K.J. Osborn shares how he helped save a man’s life by pulling him from a burning car

An NFL player says he helped save a man's life when he, along with three others, pulled the driver from a burning car in Austin, Texas, following a crash.

K.J. Osborn, who is a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, tweeted about the harrowing incident, which happened early March 5.

"Right place, right time," he posted, alongside photos from the scene.

“Last night myself and these 3 absolute heroes helped save a man’s life by rescuing him from a vehicle up in flames after a bad crash,” Osborn wrote in a note on the post. “A situation I’d never imagine being a part of in a million years.”

Later, speaking to ESPN in "The Adam Schefter Podcast," Osborn said he'd been riding in an Uber home when he and his driver saw the car had crashed under a bridge and had flames coming out from under the hood.

His Uber driver hopped out of the car and said they should call 911, Osborn said.

"I'm like, 'No, you know, we gotta go see this guy,'" Osborn said. The two of them went to the burning car and realized the driver was still alive but unable to move.

"I don't have experience in this. So in my head, I'm thinking, 'Oh, this car can blow up at any second. It'll all be over," Osborn told Schefter. "But my, you know, my Uber driver, he went right up to the car, he opened the door."

The two of them, along with two other people — a man Osborn identified as a recent Austin transplant from Africa and a woman — were able to rescue the driver and pull him away from the burning car before it was fully engulfed in flames.

When Schefter asked Osborn if he thought the driver would have lived without their intervention, the NFL player said no.

Both Austin Fire and Police Departments confirmed to TODAY.com that there was an incident at 2:35 a.m. local time early Sunday morning at 6700 N. Mopac Expressway in Austin, Texas.

In a phone call on March 6, a spokesperson for Austin Fire Department said the driver had driven off the road into a grassy area and then hit a concrete overpass pillar at a high rate of speed.

The spokesperson said they did not have a record of the identities of the people who helped pull the driver from the car but could confirm that the driver was rescued by good Samaritans. He said when EMS arrived on the scene, the driver had already been rescued from the Audi A4 and the car was by then "fully involved" in fire.

“Patient was treated on scene and transported with serious but non-life threatening injuries,” the official texted TODAY.com.

The Austin Police Department said their preliminary reports showed a single vehicle had collided with a pole and then caught fire shortly thereafter.

"Our officers arrived shortly after the crash, when the driver had already been removed from the vehicle," APD said in an email on March 7, echoing AFD's statement that the driver had non-life threatening injuries. "No other people were harmed."

Osborn's team did not immediately respond to TODAY.com's request for comment.

Osborn told ESPN he plans to check on the driver in the hospital soon.

He added that he had to explain to the other two individuals who helped him and the Uber driver that the media was going to be covering this incident.

“(The recent immigrant) didn’t know, like, much about football. I told him like, ‘You know, you know, this is this is gonna be a big thing. You know, we just helped save someone, that was huge,’” Osborn said.

Osborn added that though the saying goes “wrong place at the wrong time,” he was glad to be there in that driver’s time of need.

“I was at the exact place, the right place at the right time. So I was happy we were able to do that,” he said.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com