Jonathon “Tig” Willard hasn’t played an official game with the Tennessee Titans, and he’s already showing the team in a good light. Willard, a rookie linebacker who signed on as a free agent, was late to training camp this week for one very good reason: he was saving a family from a burning vehicle.
While driving back from South Carolina to Tennessee Willard noticed a vehicle ablaze Tuesday (July 23). “This car in front of me, and it had all kinds of black smoke coming out of it,” Willard said in an interview. “I tried to speed up and get up next to the car to let them know the car was on fire.”
He pulled up next to the vehicle and honked to alert the driver, Cheri Hubbard. Three children and a dog were also in the car. “When she pulled over, the car was really on fire at that point. The driver, she acted like she was in some kind of daze or something. She told me that she didn’t stop because she didn’t think it was her car that was on fire.”
Willard first rescued the infant and then another child from the car. A second man pulled over and helped retrieve one of the three children and the dog. “Another guy stopped, and we managed to get the kids and the dog out and get them to safety, and then I finally got the woman out.”
Hubbard left the scene before getting the names of Willard and her second rescuer, and did not return a request for comment from the Associated Press.
As for Willard, he says he was only “doing what everybody else would do,” but his noble act didn’t go unnoticed by Titans coach Mike Munchak. “We are very proud he got involved,” Munchak said. “He saw something, reacted in a positive way and brought good to a tough situation.”
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Photo: Titans/Tig Willard/Tennessee Highway Patrol
