NFL WR Rescued Man from Fiery Car: God Had Me ‘At the Right Place’

Published: June 10, 2025

By Mallory Mattingly

Washington Commanders wide receiver K.J. Osborne thanks God he could help rescue a man from a burning car.

The athlete opened up about the experience in a conversation with Sports Spectrum’s Matt Forte and Jason Romano, sharing how one night in 2023, his teammates begged him to go out with them. Osborne didn’t want to but reluctantly said yes anyway.

Osborne said that he “missed his Uber,” and as he got into his second Uber, his driver saw a burning car that had crashed.

“My Uber driver just starts going crazy. He’s like, ‘Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!’ I look up, and I’m wondering what’s all the fuss about,” Osborn said previously, per the New York Post. “He’s like, ‘This guy crashed,’ and I look to my right and there’s a car, if you were to picture it, under a bridge’s pillars. His car is head-on. He hit the pillar and his car is in flames.”

The Uber driver pulled over, and the wide receiver called 911 before he, the driver and a few others leapt into action to save the man.

“The guy’s name was Nelson,” Osborne said on Sports Spectrum’s podcast. “He was able to muster the strength because the fire was going all on the hood, you know, starting to move back like towards him. I think he said his feet started to get hot. And he’s a strong guy. He was on THE CHALLENGE, I think that the show was called.”

“And so he’s like, leaned over the cup holders in the middle, and they tried to pull him out,” he described. “They weren’t able to. And that’s when I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m going.’ So, I went, and we pulled him out, and I picked him up, and I had him, like, kind of like, chest to chest, and I took him away maybe 30 yards, and I could hear him, in my ear, ‘Thank you. God bless you. Thank you, God.'”

By that time, Osborne had blood all over his clothes and was just trying to process what had just happened. He realized that because of his position as an NFL player, the story could explode, and he didn’t want all the credit for himself.

“I said, ‘Wait.’ I know I had to tell my agent about this. I’m like, you know, ‘I want to take a picture with you guys,'” Osborne recalled. “I said, the four people I was with, I believe all of them are African, and after speaking to them — they didn’t watch football or anything like that — I’m telling them I’m an NFL player, [and] I’m going to have to tell my agent about this. So this may get out and may be a story. I said, ‘I don’t want the story to just be K.J. Osborne saves Nelson from the burning car.’ I said, ‘It was all four of us.’ My Uber driver’s name was Abdul. I said, ‘You went up to that car first with no hesitation. I don’t want it to just be K.J. Osborne as a hero.'”

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After that night, Osborne shared the photo on his Instagram and wrote, “Most of the time the saying goes ‘wrong place, wrong time.’ But this time, I believe God had me, us, at the right place at the exact right time.

“Last night myself and these 3 absolute hero’s helped save a mans life by rescuing him from a vehicle up in flames after a bad crash. A situation I’d never imagine being apart of in a million years,” Osborne added. “I’ll leave you with this. God is real. And His LOVE is real. He will send his angels to be camped around you and provide you with his grace and mercy.”