Dramatic moment police pull out victim from burning vehicle after illegal race leads to horrific crash

Footage released from police in New Mexico captures the moment officers had to reach into an upside down, burning car to pull out a man after the car he was in crashed during an illegal street race.

The Farmington Police Department shared the video of the September 26 wreck to ‘highlight the dangers of street racing’.

A surveillance camera caught a white sedan flying down the road, before it clipped the side of another moving vehicle.

That was enough to cause the car to spin around nearly 90 degrees, collide with a parked car, and flip over into a nearby parking lot. 

It exploded on impact while two male occupants were inside, police said.

While this was all playing out, the other vehicle identified by police as involved in the race, a red Toyota Supra, was seen speeding after the crashed car and stopping right near it.

The driver of the Toyota, 22-year-old Kalynn Kenworthy, was later charged with racing on highways.

Officers immediately arrived on the scene because they had been aware of the race and had tried to stop the white car, which fled from them.

Police body camera footage shows an officer pulling Kenworthy away from the burning car as she was telling her friend to, ‘Grab my hand! Grab my f***ing hand!’

The person inside, later identified as a 20-year-old man, was screaming in pain as the officer yanked him out. The back of his sweatshirt was on fire for several seconds before it got stamped out from him lying on the asphalt.

The man stayed face down in the parking lot of a local grocery store for several minutes while the police waited for paramedics to arrive.

In that time, he told them he was the passenger and that his friend was the driver. The driver was discovered among a crowd of bystanders and was told to sit down near where the cops had set up.

It’s unclear how the driver got out of the car, but police said charges are pending against him. They have only identified him as a 27-year-old man.

At one point, Kenworthy tried to check on her injured friend as he repeatedly begged police to call his grandma.

‘I’m just making sure that he’s okay,’ she said as officers tried to get her to stay back. ‘All I care about is him, I don’t give a f*** about that, I don’t give a f*** about my car.’

When asked, the man said his hands and face hurt. His nose was visibly gushing blood, and he believed it was broken during the crash.

‘Dude, I’m f***ed up,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to die.’  

Both men, the driver and the passenger, were taken to the San Juan Regional Medical Center for treatment, police said.

Kenworthy, who was not injured, was booked into the San Juan County Detention Center the morning of September 27, the day after the crash.

It was also revealed that she has an extensive history of traffic violations. She has been cited for racing in 2023 and in August 2025, a month before this incident.

She also has more than seven speeding citations within the past four years, and each time, she was clocked going more than 15 miles per hour over the speed limit.

Farmington police responded to 2,672 crashes in 2024, which combined left 463 people injured and seven dead.

Police Chief Steve Hebbe has called the street racing ‘kind of in the fabric of Farmington’ and a ’20-year problem’.