Dick Van Dyke cheats death as car catches fire on LA motorway
VETERAN actor Dick Van Dyke escaped death when he was rescued from a burning car.
The 87-year-old, who starred in Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, was driving on a motorway in Los Angeles when his Jaguar caught fire.
Passers-by seen the actor slumped in the driver's seat and pulled him out of the car before it went up in flames.
Amazingly, Van Dyke didn't even know the car was on fire, and thought that he had got a flat tyre.
"It just started making a noise, and I thought I had a flat at first, then it started to smoke, then it burned to a crisp," he told a reporter from celebrity gossip site TMZ.
Van Dyke, who is most loved for his performances on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, was checked over by paramedics at the scene. He sustained no injuries and did not need to go to hospital.
"There was a fireman, a nurse and a cop just happened to be passing by. Somebody's looking after me," Van Dyke told TMZ.
His wife Arlene tweeted that her husband was not harmed, and linked to a Vine video of the burnt-out car.
Van Dyke showed that he had a sense of humour about the incident, later tweeting a picture of his charred car with the caption. "Used Jag for sale, REAL CHEAP!"
It is still unknown how the fire started.