A Manatee County husband and wife are counting themselves fortunate after their car caught on fire on a rural road and they were rescued by an off-duty deputy.

  • Neil, Claudia Cook's car caught fire, doors jammed
  • Deputy, wife passing by heading home from church
  • Deputy said they rarely took that route home

A large patch of burned out grass by the side of Moccasin Wallow Road in Parrish is all that's left of the most frightening day of Neil and Claudia Cook's lives.
　
"We've kidded around about dying at the same time, but I thought 'Oh please -- this is not a good way to do this,'" said Claudia.
 
The couple was on the way to visit their grandchildren on Aug. 20 when they pulled over with car trouble. Moments later, they realized their car had caught fire.

They tried and tried to exit the burning vehicle, but their doors wouldn't open. Seconds later, they spotted the man they say was an angel.

"I remember thinking, 'Alright -- how are we going to get out of this car?' and now, then Willie pulled up next to me," Neil explained.
 
"Willie" wasn't just a passerby, but off-duty Deputy Willie Finklea, who was on his way home from church with his wife.

"I just went into action," Finklea said. "I don't know if it's training or what have you, but I just went into action -- I just wanted to get them out of that car."
 
When he saw the car, he knew they were in danger, and tried to open the door.

"I grabbed the door handle and yanked it, and the door handle broke," he said.
 
With the front door stuck, Finklea grabbed his weapon and shot through the back window. He then kicked through and unlocked the back door.

Finklea was then able to grab the couple and pull them to safety.
 
The stretch of road where it all happened is so rural that there's only farmland for nearly a mile. The chance of anyone finding them at that moment was so slim the Cooks say it had to have been help from above.

"It was just a real scary, scary situation but Jesus had it all under control because he had Willie and his wife on the way," Claudia said.

Finklea expressed a similar belief in how it all unfolded.

"I believe my wife and I were agents of God at that point," he said. "To be at that location at that time, because that's not our usual route, we rarely go that way, but that day, we went that way."
 
The Cooks said they plan to take Finklea and his wife out to dinner as a 'thank you.'