Editor's note: this version corrects the town in which John Martins resides.

North Stonington — The driver of a heavy-duty wrecker was flown by Life Star helicopter to Rhode Island Hospital on Friday morning after a crash and fire that snarled traffic on Interstate 95 for several hours.

State police are crediting several passersby for helping to save the driver’s life.

The crash occurred at 9:46 a.m., shortly after the wrecker had responded to an accident involving a bus driving off the highway on I-95 North in Groton.

The wrecker, driven by 52-year-old John Martins of Pawtucket, R.I. was leaving the scene of the bus accident and traveling north in the area of Exit 92 when it blew a tire.

The wrecker veered off the left side of the road and hit a bridge railing above Route 2.

The wrecker continued off the road, damaged about 500 feet of rope wire guardrail and traveled down an embankment in the center median. It struck a tree and the bottom of the embankment and caught fire, state police said.

As state police were en route, several people stopped to assist.

“These Good Samaritans rushed down the embankment and pulled the driver from the burning wrecker that was now fully engulfed,” said Trooper Robert Scavello in a written report.

Craig Johnson of New London was one of those Samaritans. He was heading for work at Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence when he spied smoke and then fire.

"I got out and all around me there were mini-explosions," he said in a phone interview a few hours later. "Then I heard a man screaming."

The man was Martins. The explosions Johnson heard were the sounds of tires being consumed in the roadside conflagration.

By the time Johnson got down to the accident scene, he said, the driver was lying by the side of the truck's cab.

All Johnson knew was that the man, whose clothes were consumed by fire down to his belt and underwear, needed to be moved fast.

"It was surreal," Johnson said. "I was thinking the whole time I was down there, 'Am I going to die?' I didn't know — I just did it. ... We couldn't leave the man there."

He said he and one other motorist fought through clumps of bittersweet vines to drag the man to safety, eventually helped by another motorist who grabbed the driver's legs.

The scariest time was when yet another of the truck's large tires exploded right near them.

"Flames were coming upon us so fast," Johnson wrote in a Facebook posting. "We got him untangled, away from the fire and up the embankment."

Minutes after they left the area where the driver had been, the truck and surrounding landscape burst into flames.

"It was so hot, so smoky, I could barely breathe," Johnson said. "The hardest part was getting him up the hill with three-inch vines everywhere and his arm and feet getting stuck. It was a nightmare."

With explosions shaking the ground, Johnson said he and his fellow Good Samaritans decided to take the injured driver across the highway using a blanket fashioned into a makeshift stretcher.

Police identified the other drivers who stopped to help as Leticia Orozco of East Lyme; Gerard Richardson, Abernathy Brown and Matthew Easton of New Jersey; Sherry Balcher of Westbrook, and Jamie Thomas of Colorado.

Johnson, trained in dealing with medical issues in emergency rooms as a neuro-diagnostic technician, said he reacted without thinking and began asking the driver all the appropriate medical questions as if he were on auto-pilot.

He said he performed first aid, making sure the driver's breathing pathways were clear and that he applied pressure to the driver's scalp.

"It happened so fast," said Johnson, also a member of the local band The Rivergods.

The first thing Johnson did after it was all over was to call girlfriend Natasha Singer to hear her voice.

"If you see anything on the news, I'm OK," he told her.

I-95 South was closed in the area of Exit 92 for about an hour while several fire departments worked to put out the flames.

I-95 North was closed for about three hours to allow firefighters to work and police to investigate the cause of the crash.

A bridge inspection team and the state Department of Transportation were called in to inspect the bridge parapet and fix the damaged guardrail.

Any witnesses to the crash are asked to contact Trooper Scavello at Troop E in Montville at (860) 848-6500.

Martins was listed in critical condition Friday evening.

"I think he was in good hands," Johnson said. "I'm just glad that he's all right. We had guardian angels on us." 

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow