TACOMA, Wash. — The sheriff’s office has released dramatic bodycamera video footage, capturing the moment a Pierce County deputy and a Good Samaritan pulled an injured mailman from his burning truck in Parkland.
On January 8, deputies say the mail truck crashed into a white car on Park Avenue South.
Stephanie Burkhart Mabee told KIRO 7 she pulled over to check on the drivers.
“It was just really, really smoking. It wasn’t like in flames yet, but you could tell that it was getting ready to,” Mabee said.
With no time to waste, Mabee grabbed her hammer, seatbelt cutter, and fire extinguisher from her car.
“His door wouldn’t move, so I used my hammer and smacked the handle and broke it and then slid the door open,” she said.
She says the postal worker was trapped and unable to move.
“I had to use my seatbelt cutter and cut his seatbelt to pull him out,” Mabee said.
Just as Mabee dragged the injured man away from the truck, bodycam video shows a Pierce County deputy arriving with a fire extinguisher. Together, they tried to put out the growing flames.
“He started with his fire extinguisher. And then we noticed the fire wasn’t going out. So we both ran back over to the guy and pulled the guy further away,” Mabee said.
Deputy Carly Cappetto with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said time was critical, especially not knowing what could have been inside the mail truck.
“We don’t know what’s in those packages. We don’t know if there’s explosives or anything that could ignite quickly or explode, and so they really can be very dangerous,” Cappetto said.
Both the postal worker and a passenger in the backseat of the car that was struck were taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
Mabee says she doesn’t consider herself a hero; she just did what she hopes anyone would do.
“I would wish that if something was going on with somebody in my family or myself, that people wouldn’t just sit in their cars and watch,” she said.
©2026 Cox Media Group
