Machete saves! Actor Danny Trejo pulls child from crashed car

The Hollywood star is better known for ending lives than extending them

FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2016 file photo, Danny Trejo attends the "From Dusk till Dawn: The Series" screening and panel discussion at the 2016 PaleyFest Fall TV Previews in Beverly Hills, Calif. Trejo played a real-life hero Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2019, when he helped rescue a baby trapped in an overturned car after a collision at a Los Angeles intersection. Trejo says he crawled into the wrecked vehicle from one side and, with the help of another bystander, a young woman, they pulled the baby safely from the wreckage. Trejo, an L.A. native, is best known for playing the character Machete from the "Spy Kids" series. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)
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Hollywood actor Danny Trejo, known for his tough-guy roles in such films as Machete and From Dusk Till Dawn helped rescue a special needs child who was trapped in a car that overturned in a Los Angeles traffic collision on Wednesday.

Trejo, 75, told television station KABC-TV he was on his way to an auto mechanic in LA's Sylmar neighborhood when he saw a motorist run a red light and crash into another car, which flipped over onto its roof in the intersection.

The boy, strapped into his car seat in the back of the car, and his grandmother, who had been driving, were both trapped in the overturned, partially crushed vehicle.

Trejo and another bystander - a woman who identified herself as Monica Jackson - teamed up to free the child before emergency personnel arrived on the scene, they said. Jackson crawled in on one side of the wreck to unbuckle the boy from his car seat, and Trejo pulled the child out from the other side.

The actor said he had to calm the boy down before he was able to free the child.

"He was panicked, and I said, 'OK, we have to use our superpowers,' and so he screamed, 'Superpowers!' and we started yelling, 'Superpowers,'" Trejo recounted. "We got kind of, like, a bond, I guess."

Trejo stayed with the boy after he was freed until his grandmother was pulled to safety by rescue workers.