Latest Close Call Captured On Video Shows Risk Emergency Crews Face

BRIGHTON, Colo. (CBS4) - A crew of firefighters in Brighton were able escape serious injury last month when a car being driven by an apparently distracted driver came right at them.

Newly released video of the incident shows a silver Kia turning towards the fire crew, which was on the side of a road filling up their engine tanks at a hydrant. The car darts out from the shoulder and comes inches away from one of the firefighters.

Initially in the video, the firefighter is seen staying in the road watching as the car veered off the shoulder. He yells out to three on his crew who were standing at the hydrant and never saw the car coming.

"He might have actually saved his fellow crewmen by shouting, or speaking up?" CBS4's Stan Bush asked Mark Bodane, Brighton Fire Rescue's chief, on Wednesday.

"Yeah, if the car had stayed on that path, their backs were to that vehicle and they could have been hit," Bodane said.

But the car swerved back in between two fire trucks, barely missing the firefighter in the road, and sped off.

"He was convinced that that car was going to hit his fellow crewmembers, and so he was yelling at them, and then when he saw it swerve back he realized that the car might hit him," Bodane said.

Bodane told CBS4 getting hit along the side of the road is a risk emergency roadside crews face on a daily basis. In Minnesota, dashcams recently recorded a deputy ducking at the last second when an SUV slid out of control. And in March a state trooper was almost hit in Boulder County by an SUV during a roadside stop.

"We realize that many times people are not paying attention and they're going too fast for conditions," Bodane said.

Brighton Fire officials say their crew escaped the incident unscathed because the firefighter who yelled was so aware of his surroundings.

The firefighters say they were able to get the car's license plate number and were able to hand it over to local police so the driver could get a citation.