By Robert A. Cronkleton
The Kansas City Star
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Video released Wednesday morning captured the moments when a Kansas City Police Department detective and a Clay County Sheriff’s deputy rescued a man from a pickup truck that was engulfed in flames.
The rescue occurred about 3:30 p.m. Sept. 15 along southbound Interstate 35 at the Interstate 435 interchange, according to a Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report. The 2018 Ford F-250 had a mechanical problem and caught fire.
Detective Jason Findley, a 19-year veteran of the Kansas City Police Department and a bomb and arson detective who works with K-9 Rocky, had just gotten off work when he saw the fire, according to posts on the Clay County Sheriff’s Office’s and Kansas City Police Department’s Facebook pages.
Findley pulled over and ran toward the truck. As Findley dragged the driver from the truck, Deputy Chase Blatt, driving north on I-35, saw the fire and the driver being pulled from the truck. Blatt stopped and helped Findley pull the disoriented man away from the pickup, which later exploded, according to the two agencies.
The rescue was captured on Blatt’s vehicle’s dash camera and body-worn camera. Blatt originally joined the Clay County Sheriff’s Office as a detention officer, then returned to the agency and was sworn in as a deputy in January 2025, according to the sheriff’s office’s Facebook page.
The 70-year-old driver was taken to a hospital for treatment of burns to his legs, which were listed as serious injuries, according to the crash report. The pickup was a total loss.
In late February, the Clay County government honored Blatt, a school resource officer in the North Kansas City School District , for potentially saving a student’s life.
Earlier that month, Blatt heard someone crying at the top of a three-story stairwell. He hurried up the stairs and saw a student gazing down, according to Clay County’s Facebook page. The student said they wanted to harm themselves and Blatt pulled them away to a nearby empty classroom, calling for a counselor and administrator.
Blatt spoke with the student about what led to those feelings. Blatt, along with school staff, met with the student’s parents, giving them resources for mental health treatment.
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