Texarkana man pulls woman from burning truck seconds before it was engulfed on I-30

TEXARKANA, Texas – A 25-year-old Texarkana man is being credited with pulling a woman and several of her dogs from a burning pickup on Interstate 30 Wednesday, moments before the cab was fully consumed by flames.

According to witnesses, the woman’s pickup, which was pulling a camper trailer, rear-ended a semi-truck, igniting propane bottles mounted on the gooseneck of the trailer. The resulting explosion sent up a fireball that engulfed the truck and camper within seconds.

Mitchell Royal said he and his girlfriend, Asia, were traveling on St. Michael Drive near the hospital when he saw the explosion on the interstate.

“I saw the explosion happen immediately. I knew it was fresh,” Royal said. “I said, Asia, pull over.”

He crossed two highways on foot, waited for a break in traffic and jumped the concrete barrier to reach the four-door Ford F-150. The cab was crushed and fire was already coming through the back glass.

Unable to get in through the passenger door, Royal said he heard the driver, an older woman, yelling for help. He forced open the rear passenger door and found five or six dogs inside.

“All of them were nice except one,” he said. “There was a service dog and he was just trying to do his job.”

Royal said he army crawled through broken glass and flames to get the dogs out, then had to get past the service dog, which was positioned between him and the woman. Once the dog was clear, he reached in, pushed the seat lever back and forced the seat down to reach her.

“There was a moment when I thought we were both gonna die,” Royal said. “The flames just kept on rushing in and I had to duck my head underneath the flame and pull her out underneath this wall of flame. I was like, ma’am, if you do not work with me right now, we will both die in this vehicle.”

He pulled her out and dragged her clear of the truck. Roughly 30 seconds later, he said, the entire cab went up.

Royal said the woman had what appeared to be a fractured leg and multiple puncture wounds, possibly from glass, and the top of her hair was burned from the initial blast. She was taken to CHRISTUS St. Michael.

He believes four or five dogs made it out. Two small dogs did not.

“I tried my best, man,” he said.

Royal was quick to spread the credit. He said a trucker who witnessed the crash, and who later shared his dash cam footage of the rescue, and another bystander in a brown shirt and black hat helped him throughout.

“I would call him the hero as well,” Royal said of the second man. “If it wasn’t for him, I would have been struggling out there.”

Asia is a certified nursing assistant, and Royal said most of his family are registered nurses. He also credited his years in the Boy Scouts, where he earned Eagle Scout with Troop 296 in Celina, Texas, and later trained alongside his brother, Forrest Harris, with Troop 66 in Texarkana. He said mock crash scenarios the troop ran, with actors playing injured victims inside vehicles, taught him to stay calm.

Royal, a music producer and artist who works with VIP Studios, said he had planned to stay home and play video games that day because he was sore from a mixed martial arts grappling session and was on his way to get cryotherapy when he came across the wreck.

“God got me up and he had a mission for me,” he said. “I felt the presence of the Lord guide me into a flaming vehicle.”

Royal said he has since been contacted by a Catholic radio station in central Texas connected to the woman’s family, and that her husband and relatives were making their way to Texarkana. He planned to visit her at the hospital Thursday and bring flowers.

The crash shut down both eastbound and westbound lanes of I-30 Wednesday afternoon, backing up traffic across the city for hours.