A cadet at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York is being hailed as a hero after he and his father pulled a man from a wrecked car, stepping over sparking power lines as they did, right before the vehicle burst into flames.
“When I saw the car with a live power line sparking, I knew I had to act — there wasn’t time to think twice,” Larry Pickett Jr., a West Point sophomore or yearling, said in a statement. “I’m thankful I could help get him out safely, and even more grateful that everyone is okay. God is good!”
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Pickett and his family were returning from dinner in Times Square when they came across the wreck about 10 minutes from the school in Fort Montgomery, New York, his father Larry Pickett Sr. told Task & Purpose.
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The car had hit a utility pole and the power lines were underneath the vehicle, the elder Pickett said. The man inside was still conscious, but was incoherent and staring straight ahead.
“My son, he just jumped right into action,” Larry Pickett Sr. said. “He just reacted. He relied on his military training.”
Pickett and his father jumped over the downed power lines, opened the door and unbuckled the man’s seatbelt, the elder Pickett said. Pickett’s sister, Lauren posted a video of the rescue on Facebook. Pickett and his father are seen extracting the man from the car as power lines spark around them.
“All the power that’s in a defibrillator that’s hanging up on a wall in a building somewhere, there was a million times more of that power sitting right there, and he didn’t flinch,” Pickett’s father said.
Not long after the two carried the man to the side of the road, flames engulfed the car. Pickett stayed with the man until emergency responders arrived on the scene.
Pickett’s actions came just hours after he got his first chance at playing time for West Point’s football team, recording one tackle in a double-overtime loss to Tarleton State. Pickett was on the team’s roster for the 2024 season but did not play.
Originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, Pickett also spent a year at West Point’s prep school before enrolling as a cadet, according to a biography on West Point’s web page.
Pickett drew praise from members of the academy’s athletics department.
“Larry’s heroic actions embody everything we strive to instill in our cadet-athletes — courage, selflessness, and a willingness to put others before themselves,” Jeff Monken, West Point’s head football coach, said in a statement. “In that critical moment, he didn’t think of himself, only of helping another person in need. We are incredibly proud of Larry for the way he represented his family, our Army Football brotherhood, and the values of West Point.”
Army West Point Athletics Director Tom Theodorakis echoed that sentiment.
“This is exactly what we strive to develop at West Point — leadership, courage, and selfless service,” Theodorakis said in a statement. “Cadet Larry Pickett Jr. and his father exemplify the values we hold dear, stepping up in a moment of crisis to save a life. Proud to see these traits in action, on and off the fields of friendly strife. Count the brave.”
In the video of the rescue, the elder Pickett talks to his son about the rescue after first responders begin treating the man from the car.
Pickett tells his father that he is grateful that the two of them were able to pull the man from the car because he didn’t think anyone else at the scene of the crash intended to do so.
“That could have been really bad for him and his family,” Pickett says.
