U.S. News

An NBC Correspondent Pulled a Teenager Out of a Burning Car Seconds Before It Exploded

By Erica Coleman · May 18, 2026

Tom Costello was leaving work on the Capital Beltway when a car passed him doing what he estimated to be 100 miles an hour.

“That car then made a corner and slammed into a concrete barrier on the Beltway,” Costello, a senior correspondent for NBC News, told his colleague Hallie Jackson the following morning. “When he did, the car exploded into a hundred pieces — not fire, immediately, but pieces everywhere.” He watched the car flip into the air and land on the pavement.

He called 911. Then he pulled over.

The crash happened on May 12 near the Montgomery County stretch of I-495 in Maryland. By the time Costello reached the wreckage, the car was smoking, crushed, and beginning to smolder. Inside was a teenage driver — conscious, awake, but in shock. “Everything hurts,” the teenager told Costello. He said he couldn’t feel much in his fingers or toes.

Two other drivers had also stopped — an orthopedic surgeon and a nurse. Costello had not known who they were when he first arrived at the wreck. They identified themselves and immediately took charge of the medical assessment. The surgeon checked the teenager’s condition. They determined the teenager was in potential danger from the growing fire beneath the vehicle, and that moving him — despite the unknown risk of spinal injury — was necessary.

The three of them — a reporter, a surgeon, and a nurse — supported the teenager’s neck and carried him away from the burning car to the side of the road. “And then the car really caught fire and exploded,” Costello said.

The teenager survived. He was taken to a hospital. His condition has not been publicly updated, but Costello described him as “alive” when emergency responders arrived.

Costello went home that night and, by his own account, could not sleep. The next morning he described what had happened on air, visibly shaken but composed. “I mean, thank God for that orthopedic surgeon, and the nurse, she was amazing,” he said. “I think the lesson here is: Watch your kids. I mean, this was a driver who probably hadn’t been driving long. He should be dead.”

The Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service confirmed the rescue on social media, posting a photo of the burned-out wreckage and acknowledging the bystanders who acted before responders arrived. The teenager’s name has not been publicly released.

Costello has been a Washington-based correspondent for NBC News for more than 20 years, covering aviation, transportation, and national security. He is, by all accounts, someone who understands how quickly things can go wrong on a highway. On the evening of May 12, that knowledge apparently translated directly into action.

“I can’t believe he’s alive,” Costello said.