Danny Trejo rescues baby from overturned vehicle in Los Angeles
An actor who usually plays villains became a hero.
Actor Danny Trejo has made his career playing villains in movies like "Heat," "Con Air," and "Desperado." But, in Sylmar, California, Trejo has just cast himself in a new role: hero.
Trejo witnessed a traffic accident in the northern Los Angeles neighborhood when, according to ABC Los Angeles station KABC, a driver ran a red light and collided with another vehicle leaving it overturned in the middle of the road.
"There was a lady in the front seat that was pinned," Trejo said. "And she just kept screaming 'My baby! My baby!'"
Trejo sprang into action to save the child.
"I went to the backseat, and me and some guy that was there pulled open the backdoor because he was stuck," Trejo explained.
The actor crawled into the overturned vehicle and tried to unbuckle the child's car seat but couldn't from that angle.
Another bystander, however, who had crawled into the opposite side of the car was able to unbuckle the child, allowing Trejo to pull the little boy safely from the wreckage.
But even though the boy was free, his grandmother remained trapped upside-down in the driver’s seat while firefighters worked to save her.
Trejo, who has worked with special needs children previously, called on that experience to help keep the boy calm.
"He was panicked," Trejo said. "I said, 'OK, we have to use our superpowers.' So he screamed 'superpowers' and we started yelling 'superpowers' ... we got kind of a bond. I kept facing him away from the accident."
The Los Angeles Fire Department reported that three people were transported to hospital but none with life-threatening injuries.
Trejo was reflective, and thankful, in the immediate aftermath of the traumatic experience.
"Everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else," he said. "Everything."
ABC News' Rayquan Taylor contributed to this report.
