Bellevue Man Lucky To Be Alive After Ferrari Bursts Into Flames
The pictures are hard to watch.
"When you slow (the video) down, it's pretty scary," Derek Walker says of the surveillance video from the Little Store, on West Lake Sammamish Parkway.
The video shows Derek standing by his car, pumping gas. Suddenly, his car is engulfed in flames.
So is he.
You see him jump and run away.
"It was surreal of course, and I was in la la land for a little while," he says.
Amazingly, he is just fine. The same can't be said for his car.
"It's a 1977 308 GTB. I've always wanted a Ferrari," Derek says, standing by the charred remains.
Neighbors across the street caught it on home video. Their pictures show people rush up with fire extinguishers and garden hoses, but it takes firefighters with fire retardant foam to stop the burning.
The drama had everyone asking, what happened?
"Was he smoking and that set something off?" wonders Kim Vilancio. "No one could really figure it out, 'cause it's not like that type of thing happens easily."
The video shows clearly, Derek is not smoking. He's not talking on a cell phone or moving in and out of the car, which can also trigger a spark and a fire at the pump.
The Bellevue Fire Department is still investigating.
But Derek has his own theory about his old car that could've had a small leak.
"When you're forcing gas in, you're creating a bunch of fumes, it just ignited from that. 'Boom!' " he says. "That's probably why I'm OK. If I had gas on me, I'd probably be done. But it just surrounded me and I got out of there."
And now it's easy to remember the car he spent a year and a half restoring is, after all, only a car.
"Honestly, it's what makes me less bummed out. I saw that tape and I figured what the hell, I'm here," he says. "I'm kind of glad I got the tape. It made it a whole lot easier for me to deal with."