‘I’m no special guy. We can all do this’: Loek Hartog on rescuing Ollie Millroy from a burning car

Last month in Shanghai, the Dutch driver saved Ollie Millroy’s life after a crash. The incident created a unique friendship and a shared determination to improve safety

Winter is coming and, at eight in the morning, Amsterdam is dark as Loek Hartog and I walk towards the park. The GT motor racing driver is only 24 but, after all he did last month, when he showed extraordinary courage in saving the life of his fellow racer Ollie Millroy, we talk easily about life and death.

Hartog sips a takeaway coffee and, as we stroll, he asks if the world seems to be in a worse state than usual. Paris is burning, Kyiv is reeling, Vladimir Putin is being hailed as “a humanitarian” by Donald Trump’s envoy and the robots are coming for us. These are grim times, but I remind Hartog that he gave us hope as, after ripping off the doors of Millroy’s burning car as if he had stepped out of a superhero movie, his humanity was remarkably moving. Hartog dragged Millroy to safety before trying to comfort the 36-year-old Briton after an accident that left him with six broken ribs, a damaged lung, a splintered collarbone, a broken hand, a fractured C6 neck vertebrae and a stunned sense that he had almost died at the China GT.

Continue reading…