Run barefoot into the woods toward a crashed plane on fire? Scale a 12- to 14-foot fence? Pull a woman out of the wreckage before it explodes?
No problem for Craig Schum, a 33-year-old Brooklyn, N.Y., man who went from humble baker to hero on Sunday night, ABC News reported (video above).
Schum sprang from his Jeep when a small plane plummeted into a wooded area shortly after takeoff from East Hampton Airport in Long Island, according to the New York Post. He scaled a 12- to 14-foot deer fence barefoot and ran to the wreckage site.
The pilot, later identified as Steven Bochter, was dazed and bloodied near the crash site. Passenger Kim Brillo was still inside the plane, unconscious. So Schum did what heroes do. He carried her out to safety several hundred yards from the burning aircraft while comforting her. He thought she might be dead, but she came to as they made their escape.
Airlifted to Stony Brook Hospital, Bochter had minor injuries and Brillo suffered a broken arm, outlets reported.
It could have been a lot worse. Schum estimates the plane exploded in flames just minutes after he extricated Brillo from the fire-surrounded wreckage. Others aided in the rescue, too, he said.
A fellow worker at Levain Bakery told The Huffington Post on Tuesday, "[Schum]'s a little traumatized. He's hot and cold. It's been rough on him."
"I just helped people who needed help," a tearful Schum told ABC News.
Hardly, said one witness. "This guy is an absolute hero,” John Kirrane told the Post. “I went up to him after it all happened, with him covered in blood, and told him that it’s not every day that I meet someone who is willing to do something like he did. He did something special. It was unbelievable."
Both the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash, wrote the Daily Mail. Bochter said the Mooney single-engine plane lost power after reaching several hundred feet in the sky. He and companion Brillo were bound for Taunton, Mass.
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