Uber Driver Stops To Save 2 Lives — And Still Gets Passenger To Airport On Time!

Uber driver Fritz Sam and burning building

True heroes can’t simply pass by an emergency without feeling compelled to lend a hand.

Fritz Sam was driving his Uber around New York City when he picked up Jemimah Wei, who was on her way to LaGuardia Airport. As they drove through Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood, Fritz saw flames and smoke coming from a brownstone. Without thinking, he pulled over.

“I asked my passenger, ‘Can I pull over?'” Fritz recalled. “‘Maybe we can help.’ So we got out of the car and ran over there.”

Outside of the building a crowd had gathered, and Fritz joined them in calling for the residents inside to come out. In that moment, he was faced with the decision of staying safe out on the sidewalk or running into a burning building to help those that remained.

“At that moment, I was like, ‘You have to decide, you know, what are you going to do?'” Fritz said. “I don’t know if it was words that was hearing in my head, or if it was a feeling, and I just knew what that feeling was in words. I just knew that something had to be done at that moment. So I just took my phone, ran inside and around the staircase.”

As Jemimah watched, Fritz bolted inside the building and up the stairs. He encountered two people, including a man who said he was getting something on another floor. Fritz helped the woman out first then went back inside to convince the man to leave. He remembers speaking to the man harshly to force him out.

“I had to speak with him in a tone of almost, ‘Man, do you need me to come up there and get you?'” Fritz recalled. “Like, ‘I’m not playing, we need to get out of here.'”

By the time Fritz got the man out, firefighters and police had arrived to extinguish the blaze. On the street, he discovered a total stranger had moved his car away from a hydrant so it wouldn’t be towed or destroyed by first responders.

Back inside the car, Fritz drove Jemimah to LaGuardia, where she caught her flight right on time. When she landed, she shared a photo of the burning brownstone with praise for her Uber hero.

“On the way to the airport this morning and drove by a burning building, my Uber driver LEAPT out of the car and INTO the building while the rest of us screamed at the top of our lungs for people to evacuate, the fire truck came, we rushed to airport, I made my flight,” she tweeted. “NEW YORK.”

Jemimah’s post went viral, and Fritz’s heroism was praised far and wide. Uber even named Fritz a Hometown Hero in their first-ever Uber Yearbook. They also offered to cover his vehicle rental fees for a year!

Fritz insists he “just wanted to do the right thing,” but we know a real hero when we see one – talk about going above and beyond while on the job!

Share this harrowing story to thank the heroes of the world, like Fritz!

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