It was a car crash, he realised.

The Bluescope worker grabbed a head torch on his way out the door, his wife Jennie not far behind him. 

Outside, he saw the car had gone into a tree on a neighbouring property. It was already on fire. He waved Mrs Daniel back and went ahead alone, with only the headlamp and the flames to light up the night. 

He focused his first efforts on opening the badly warped driver’s side door. He tugged at it repeatedly, but it wouldn’t budge. 

“I’ve got sore shoulders from pulling on the door with all my might,” said Mr Daniel, who declined to be photographed by the Mercury. “I just kept trying to bend the window frame back to get some leverage.” 

“I thought, ‘I hope this car doesn’t blow up while I’m doing this’.” 

Inside the car, the 24-year-old male driver was drifting in and out of consciousness. His broken foot was jammed up among the mangled pedals. Mr Daniel wonders whether the man tried – in a lucid moment – to open the door. 

“Miraculously, it just opened,” he said. “I [freed] his foot and dragged him out of the car. Then the car was just completely engulfed, in a matter of minutes.” 

In the car’s passenger seat, 18-year-old Jayke Robinson perished in the fire as emergency services arrived.

Mr Daniel was treated for smoke inhalation and transported to Wollongong Hospital, but did not stay the night. 

The Daniels say their road has long served as a playground for speeding drivers. 

Crash investigators have found speed was undoubtedly a factor in Friday’s crash. 

For Mr Daniel, that a life was snatched back on the roadside that morning is a bittersweet chapter in its history. 

“It’s a bonus in a horrible story,” he said.