Minnesota Vikings wide receiver K.J. Osborn made the grab of a lifetime when he helped pull a man from a burning automobile in Austin, Texas, this week. If he and two other men hadn’t been on the scene, the situation very likely could have become fatal.
Posting to Instagram scenes from the accident, Osborn wrote, “Most of the time the saying goes ‘wrong place wrong time.’ But this time I believe God had me, us, at the right place at the exact right time.”
“Last night myself and these 3 absolute hero’s helped save a mans life by rescuing him from a vehicle up in flames after a bad crash. A situation I’d never imagine being apart of in a million years,” he continued.
Osborn concluded, “I’ll leave you with this. God is real. And His LOVE is real. He will send his angels to be camped around you and provide you with his grace and mercy.”
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The 25-year-old NFL star told Adam Schefter on Monday that he was in an Uber on his way home from a workout when he saw an automobile that had crashed and caught fire.
Osborn said he, the Uber driver, and two others nearby immediately pulled over to help. Upon quickly assessing the situation, they realized how serious it was. They rushed to the automobile to pull the man out to safety.
“He was kind of in a daze,” Osborn said regarding the injured man. “I don’t know if he was conscious, but I think he felt the heat coming to his legs. And obviously, he just got into a big crash, so he’s kinda out of it.”
“That’s when we began to talk to him, try to get him out. And he was able to a little bit, you know, muster something for himself before we were able to,” he said.
Explaining why he decided to take action, Osborn told the media, “Initially, we — my Uber driver, Abdul, and myself — Abdul pulled over and we were running to this car and again, like I’ve said before, we see the car on fire. You see this stuff in movies or video games or TV, but it’s different when it’s real flames in front of you.
He continued, “So I’m running and initially I want to be this hero and go help save this guy because I’m an NFL athlete, I work out and stuff. I could easily just unbuckle the seat belt and just pull him out of the car by force. But as I’m running there, the closer I get I’m like — my mom is in my head and my family and I’m risking a lot here. But my Uber driver Abdul he went right up to the car, he opened the passenger door. He’s talking to this guy, ‘Are you alive? Are you okay?’ And then there was two other friend group named Arthur and Rita. And Arthur is yelling at Abdul like, ‘Back up! We don’t know if this car is going to blow up.’ And Abdul was in it.”
“Initially, I think looking back that kind of motivated me to be like, ‘We got to save this guy.’ Because I’m a football player, none of that matters, this guy’s life is important. This is a guy who has a family, he has kids. And if he can do it, I can get down there and help as well. The driver was able to get some strength to kind of lean over and we went down and dragged him out. And then I picked him up and we were able to move far away so the car didn’t blow up. I was just happy that we were able to get him out and the firefighters were able to extinguish the fire before the car exploded,” he concluded.
Osborn’s heroism drew praise from media and fans, and especially some of his teammates, online. In particular, Kirk Cousins posted on Twitter that he wasn’t surprised by his fellow Vikings’ act of courage.
“This is totally on-brand for K.J. Osborn”, the Minnesota Vikings quarterback wrote. “Just a tremendous person and teammate.”
Osborn, a fifth-round draft pick out of Buffalo in 2020, finished off a solid season that saw him have a monstrous 10-catch, 157-yard, and one-touchdown performance against the Colts in Week 15. He’s essentially the Vikings’ number three receiver on the team behind standouts Justin Jefferson (the 2022 NFL MVP Offensive Player of the Year) and Adam Thielen (two-time Pro Bowler).
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