Dramatic video shows escape from deadly Florida helicopter crash

Dramatic video captured the moment two survivors of a deadly police helicopter crash in Florida climbed out of the wreckage and onto a roof as smoke billowed behind them.

The footage in Pompano Beach shows rescue workers propping a ladder on the side of the building as pilot Daron Roche, 37, and firefighter paramedic Mikael Chaguaceda, 31, emerge on the roof and clamber down.

“Congratulations, buddy! God loves you, man!” a woman is heard shouting in the clip, which was shot by bystander Jared Liverpool and obtained by CBS Miami. “Wow! We saw that thing up in the air!”

Liverpool exclaims: “That s— blew my mind!”

Two people perished in the Monday morning disaster — Broward County Sheriff’s Office fire Capt. Terryson Jackson, 50, who became trapped in the burning helicopter, and a female bystander.

The Airbus EC-135-T1 carrying Jackson and the two crew members was on its way to a call in North Lauderdale when it went down. Four other people were seriously injured, officials said.

“My heart was just racing, there was a lot going on at the moment. I just felt many emotions. I was scared, nervous,” Liverpool told CBS Miami.

“Surprisingly, the two men in their uniforms didn’t look like they had any injuries on them at all. One of them said that their ribs were broken probably, but they seemed fine,” he said.

“They struggled a bit climbing up the roof but they got down, a police officer was asking them if they were OK, if they needed any help. They were taken to the hospital in fair condition,” Liverpool added.

The neighbor said he was thankful the chopper didn’t hit his home.

“I live by the Pompano Beach Airpark and I am used to planes flying very low. I have never seen anything like this before,” he told the news outlet.

The chopper smashed into the building about 8:45 a.m. in the area of North Dixie Highway and Atlantic Boulevard just south of the Airpark, which is known for its Goodyear Blimp base. 

Jackson “typified what it meant to be a brother, a firefighter, he perished doing what he loved,” ​BSO Sheriff Gregory Tony said about the 19-year veteran.

Resident Quiana Carter said her ​two brothers, Lorenzo Snell and Terran Vandevier, were in the building when the helicopter crashed.

“They were waking up, one was sleeping and one was getting ready for work and heard the commotion,” she told CBS Miami.

“Things fell down on him, and as he tried to get to my other brother somehow, he made it out to a window and made it to the other side of the parking lot and that’s when the plane exploded,” Carter said.

Snell tried to save the trapped medic, she told the outlet.

“He said that the helicopter was right there, propeller was there, and he just couldn’t get to him,” Carter said after visiting her brother at Broward Health North in Pompano Beach.

The cause of the crash is under investigation by state and federal authorities.