A San Diego car accident had a happy ending only because of the courageous actions of a police officer that arrived on the scene soon after the crash. A driver of a Chevrolet Impala stalled and was soon after rear-ended by an SUV.

The driver of the Impala was then trapped in his vehicle and the car became engulfed in flames. The officer that arrived on the scene then broke the window of the burning vehicle and pulled the unconscious victim out of the vehicle and to safety.

Rear-end collisions often occur simply because drivers are inattentive or distracted. Sometimes they are on their cell phones, other times they are texting to friends, or still other times they may have been daydreaming or looking at something on the side of the road. Yet the consequence of such seemingly innocent behavior can be severe bodily injury or even death.

Negligent drivers do need to be held accountable for injuries caused by their behavior. Particularly in San Diego, attorneys are kept very busy helping out injured victims involved in accidents where other drivers simply were not paying attention.

Drivers of both vehicles were taken by medics to the hospital and neither suffered anything more than minor injuries. But though injuries were minor, we do need to keep in mind that this collision came very close to being tragic. Not only was the driver of the Impala found to be unconscious in the vehicle, but also the police officer was also forced to put himself into harm's way as a result of what probably was otherwise a fairly routine car accident.

Source: KUSI News, "Patrolman hailed for 'heroic' rescue of crash victim," Feb. 8, 2012