“THIS is the shocking moment a former Russian football star heroically saved the life of a seven-year-old boy when he pulled him from a burning car. Andrei Gelgorin, 55, smashed his way into the locked vehicle to save the young child as the car was engulfed in flames. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank”, — write: www.thesun.co.uk
Andrei Gelgorin, 55, smashed his way into the locked vehicle to save the young child as the car was engulfed in flames.
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Andrei Gelgorin saw the car on fire when he was leaving a training session in Irkutsk, RussiaCredit: East2West
The car was already on fire when he began the desperate rescue missionCredit: East2West
Gelgorin and two other men first attempted to smash the car windows with their boots before someone finally found a hammer to finish the jobCredit: East2West Video footage shows the terrifying moment he spotted smoke pouring from a parked Skoda Octavia.
He had been leaving a training session at the Zenit sports complex in the Russian city of Irkutsk at the time of the shocking ordeal.
Gelgorin then rushed back into the centre to locate the owner of the car, where he found the boy’s mother who revealed her son was trapped inside the vehicle.
The football star immediately ran back to the car with three other men and found the doors locked and the handle snapped off.
The fire blazed on as the car’s fob key also failed to work.
The video showed the trio trying to smash through the windows using their boots, however Gelgorin later said nothing could seem to break the glass.
Several failed attempts later, the fire was quickly spreading.
Another person can be seen running to the car, hammer in hand.
The glass was finally shattered, where Gelgorin found the boy, still strapped into his seat and surrounded by smoke.
The footballer said he just “pulled him out along with the seat” just seconds before the car was fully enveloped in the flames.
Firefighters later confirmed the gas tank had been almost entirely full.
Gelgorin spoke to local media following his act of heroism.
“There was no time to wait,” he said.
“Everything inside [the car] was already engulfed in flames.”
The boy had suffered from smoke inhalation and shock, but was otherwise unharmed.
“He was frightened, of course,” Gelgorin said.
The ex-football star is now a children’s coachCredit: East2West
The moment was caught in security footage from a local sport complexCredit: East2West “I waited for the fire brigade — and then I left.”
The former star midfielder and now respected children’s football coach said: “These things don’t happen every day.”
“I wouldn’t want to be famous for it.”
The car was completely destroyed in the blaze.
Gelgorin played professional football for Russian teams including in Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude in the 1990s.
It comes as a plane wing caught fire during takeoff from a Moscwo-bound plane.
Dramatic footage showed sparks flying out of the Boeing 747 with 388 people on board as it attempted to set off from a Russian airport.
The shocking footage shows the moment the huge Rossiya Airlines jet accelerated as it tried to lift itself off the tarmac.
Seconds later, it appears to be veering off the left side of the runway.
Huge clouds of ice then engulfed the aircraft’s wing as it careered off the path and into the snow.
Bursts of fire are seen spitting out of one of the engines during the bungled lift-off.
The failed takeoff marked the fourth emergency in a day involving Vladimir Putin’s struggling passenger airlines hit by Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.