Hero tradie reveals hilarious item he refused 'to touch' while putting out roadside blaze
Jonathon Marshall was on his way home from work on Monday when he spotted an 'engulfed' ute on the side of the Bruce Highway.
A tradie who has been praised for his “heroic” actions after a family’s ute burst into flames on the side of a Queensland road has revealed the one item he refused to crack open to help extinguish the blaze.
Jonathon Marshall was on his way home from work around 5.40pm on Monday when he spotted a couple frantically running around their “engulfed” vehicle on the side of the Bruce Highway just outside of Gympie.
Dashcam footage has captured the moment the good Samaritan pulled over and sprinted toward the fire with his $20 extinguisher in hand. By this point, the blaze had spread to the nearby grass reserve.
“They were busy trying to put it out with cups of water which wasn’t really working,” Mr Marshall told 7News.
Although he was able to put out the “brunt” of the ute fire in seconds, the tradie said he was “surprised” by how fast the extinguisher ran out, forcing him to retreat to his work trailer to search for other methods.
“There was still a little bit smouldering, then a bit going in the grass on the sides so it was all happening,” he told Sunrise on Wednesday morning. “I knew I had the concrete rake in the back, which I rarely have so it was really lucky, and went and grabbed that and helped out.”
Tradie refuses to use beer to put out roadside ute fire
However, that still wasn’t enough and another “flare up” prompted Mr Marshall to grab the last of his drinking water from his fridge.
“We used that to put out the last of it — had some beer in there but I wasn’t touching that,” he joked. “Luckily we got it out before we had to resort to those measures.”
After the “thirsty work”, the Queenslander admitted he did drink a cold one when he got home. He also treated himself to a chicken parmi that was “waiting for [him]”.
Aussies have praised Mr Marshall for his quick-thinking actions, but the tradie says he’s not comfortable with being labelled a hero.
“I just spare a thought for the poor fellow who owned the ute, he was out there in his flip flops, and his singlet trying to put it out by hand, like pulling bits of burning material out of the back of the ute,” he told Sunrise. He believes a camp fridge ignited the fire.
“…I just happened to have the right gear on me at the time to help out… Your nurses and emergency workers and all that sort of stuff, they’re heroes. I was just in the right place at the right time.”
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