Two Vancouver Island men have been honoured for their heroics after putting their lives at risk to rescue a man from a burning car.

Sidney-North Saanich RCMP held a special ceremony to recognize Stephen Donaldson and Mark Perkins for their quick-thinking when a black Cadillac slammed into a concrete bunker.

“I don’t think I could justify just standing by and watching somebody burn to death if I didn’t have to,” said Donaldson, the first person at the scene that night.

He smashed the passenger side window and helped pull the driver out just before flames engulfed the vehicle.

stolen car crash north saanich

“They were about eight to 10 feet and they were coming through the firewall at that point,” he said.

Perkins also rushed in to help save the driver, who was barely conscious and locked in the car with power locks and windows dead.

“I believe he would have burned alive,” said Perkins, a retired firefighter.

But there’s a twist in this tale of Good Samaritans – the driver had allegedly stolen just before the crash happened.

Police say it started at a Co-op gas station on West Saanich Road when a man carjacked the Cadillac while it was still being filled up with gas.

He took off with the gas nozzle and 10 feet of hose still attached to the car, and the hose even struck a bystander as the driver made his way north on the Pat Bay Highway.

Police say he blew through a red light and eventually smashed into the bunker on North Saanich’s Lochside Drive.

On Friday, Mounties praised the two men for their “important actions” to rescue the driver.

“We need to try to get this person out of there. That would’ve taken someone who is really demonstrating courage, for sure,” said Sidney-North Saanich RCMP Act. Cmdr. Wayne Conley.

As for the driver, he was hospitalized for weeks with serious injuries.

Police have recommended multiple charges in the case.

“I’m just hoping that maybe this thing will be something that can turn this guy’s life around for him, realizing how close he really did come,” said Perkins.

The charges against the driver have not yet been approved.

With a report from CTV Vancouver Island's Robert Buffam