SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The university math students heard the crash, saw the smoke and knew they had to act quickly. A motorcyclist had just collided with a car and was pinned beneath the flaming, twisted metal wreckage.

Disregarding their own safety, they rushed to the street and lined up with more than a half-dozen others on one side of the car. Within moments, they managed to lift the roughly 4,000-pound car just high enough for one rescuer to pull Brandon Wright to safety.

“The danger? I didn’t think about it for a minute,” said James Odei, 35, a doctoral candidate from Ghana who is studying statistics. “All I wanted to do was grab that car and raise it.”

Their few minutes of heroics was captured on video and has gone viral on the Internet. The man they saved – the 21-year-old Utah State University student – is grateful.

“I’m just very thankful for everyone that helped me out,” Wright told The Associated Press by phone from his hospital bed. “They saved my life.”

Had none of the rescuers acted, “you can only speculate what the outcome would have been,” Jeff Curtis, Logan’s assistant police chief, said.

At a hospital news conference on Tuesday, Tyler Riggs, Wright’s uncle, recounted what Wright told his family about Monday’s accident.

The crash happened near Utah State University in Logan, 90 miles north of Salt Lake City. Wright was headed to study at a computer lab, Riggs said. The BMW was pulling out of a parking lot.

Tire and skid marks on the highway showed that Wright laid the bike down and slid along the road before colliding with the car, Curtis said.

The bike hit the car’s hood and bounced to the ground, while Wright, who was not wearing helmet, slid under the car and then both vehicles burst into flames, Curtis said.

The video, shot by university staffer Chris Garff who had seen the smoke, shows a crowd gathering around the burning wreckage.

Some quickly place their hands on the car and start to rock it, while others lift from the bottom until the car tilts up.

Once the car is on its wheels, a construction worker drags a spread-eagled Wright from under the car.

Two officers then move in with fire extinguisher. A few minutes pass before paramedics start to give Wright medical care. Wright suffered no head trauma but has two broken legs, a broken pelvis, road rash, burns on his left foot and abrasions to his forehead. He was in satisfactory condition.