A car fire Friday night ended in the arrest of a man rescued from the driver’s seat and the deputy who saved him having to go to a hospital.

Cecil Thigpen, 59, was booked into the Montgomery County Jail for assaulting a police officer. The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office hasn’t identified the deputy who was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

Battalion Chief Sean McNeil, of the Harrison Twp. Fire Department, said crews were dispatched to a driveway in the 2200 block of Grant Street at about 6:35 p.m. on a report of a car fire with a person trapped.

Crews arrived to find that a deputy or deputies had removed a man from the driver’s seat and then took him into custody. Preliminary reports said that Thigpen told the deputy to let him die in the burning vehicle. He was not injured and did not require a trip to a hospital, McNeil said.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, McNeil said. Alcohol usage may be a factor, he added.

McNeil estimated the damage to the car, identified as a Cadillac, at $6,000.