Jamie Foxx Joins Surprisingly Large Celebrity to the Rescue List

By Stacy Jenel Smith

January 26, 2016 5 min read

Did you hear about Oscar winning movie star Jamie Foxx making like a real-life action hero the other day? A car went off the road and into a ditch near his house in Ventura County, California, rolling over multiple times and catching fire while the driver was trapped inside. Jamie heard the crash and rushed out of his house to the car, called 911 and then helped an off-duty paramedic who was on the scene get the man out of the car.

"You've got to help me get you out, because I don't want to have to leave you. You've got angels around you," nice guy Jamie reportedly told the 32-year-old driver. With this feat of derring-do, Jamie joins an exclusive group: celebrities who've pulled endangered motorists out of burning cars. Really.

Vin Diesel was riding down the Hollywood Freeway on a motorcycle in 2002 when a car in front of him got into an accident in which it rolled over and burst into flames. The "Fast and the Furious" and "XXX" star screeched to a halt behind it, as the incident was widely reported at the time, ran to the car and pulled the family's children out of the back seat. After everyone was out, the automobile became completely engulfed in flames.

"NCIS" hero Mark Harmon rescued two teenagers from a burning car in 1996, using a sledgehammer to break the windows and pulling the boys to safety. The car erupted in flames after crashing through a fence and into a tree near Harmon's home in Brentwood.

It's breathtaking, the number of stars who have rescued people. Consider how very rare it is to become a star, and then how rare it is to rescue someone — so the odds of doing both would seem to be infinitesimal. But take a look at this list:

—Tom Hanks was jogging on the beach near his Malibu, California home in 2002 when he heard the screams of a drowning man — and wound up rescuing him.

—Kate Winslet saved the 90-year-old mother of billionaire Richard Branson in 2011, carrying the frail lady in her arms out of a Virgin Islands estate that had been hit by lightning.

—Arnold Schwarzenegger saved a drowning man while vacationing in Maui in 2004.

—In 2011, Brad Pitt rescued an extra who had fallen down and was in danger of being trampled in a zombie mob scene for his "World War Z" movie.

—Pitt also rescued someone from drowning in a lake.

—Sean Penn rescued two people trapped in a building after an aftershock in Haiti in 2010.

—Harrison Ford has been involved in rescues including that of a woman overcome with heat, dehydration and altitude sickness while on a five-hour climb of Table Mountain near his Wyoming digs. Ford, who volunteered use of his Bell helicopter for such emergencies, flew in to get her.

—Renee Zellweger saved a woman who had collapsed when out hiking in California's Runyon Canyon.

—Matthew McConaughey caught a woman who fainted at the Toronto Film Festival.

—Viggo Mortensen saved his co-star Zuleikha Robinson from a runaway horse — by jumping off the back of the animal and grabbing the reins that had slipped from her hands — on the set of his film, "Hidalgo."

—Pierce Brosnan jumped into a runaway van and put on the brakes during filming of "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief" in 2009, thereby sparing a nearby group including Uma Thurman from injury.

—Ryan Gosling purportedly pulled a British newspaper writer out of the path of an onrushing taxicab in 2012.

—Tom Cruise hit the saving exacta in 1996, when he reportedly 1) helped a woman who was injured in a hit-and-run auto accident and paid her bill; 2) pulled two little boys out of a potentially crushing throng of people, and 3) rescued a group stranded aboard a burning boat by giving them a lift in his yacht.

The latter incident was eventually disputed, with Tom being placed away from the burning boat action, but still, that's a lot of heroic stuff! Some cast a suspicious eye upon it all, considering that was the year his first "Mission: Impossible" film came out. Hm. Could some of these exploits be movie hype? Or could it be that these athletically-inclined actors have rehearsed for such times by quite literally role-playing emergency scenes? While other people might stand by waiting for professionals to come help, they're ready and able to swoop into action? Perhaps there are multiple explanations. But anyway, Jamie Foxx, welcome to the club.

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