The eight-year-old son of Roger Rodas was one of the first to try and rescue his father after the car he was travelling in with actor Paul Walker crashed and burst into flames.

Mr Rodas and Mr Walker had been on a 20 minute drive and were on the way back to an event hosted by the Fast & Furious star’s charity, when Mr Rodas seems to have lost control of his Porsche Carrera GT.

The vehicle smashed through a lamppost and into a tree before being engulfed in flames, killing them both.

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The crash happened so close to the event that friends and family, including Mr Rodas’ son, ran to the wreckage to try and put out the fire and rescue the pair.

“I ran over afterwards, I was trying to find Roger’s son,” Jim Torp, an eyewitness who attended the event told the New York Daily News.

“I found out his son had jumped the fence and gone over, he was trying to get his dad out. Paul Walker’s best friend was trying to get Paul out of the car while it was still on fire ... he was trying to save his friend ... there was nothing he could do.”

Another witness and friend of Mr Walker, Antonio Holmes told The Santa Clarita Valley Signal: “We all heard from our location [the accident]. It’s a little difficult to know what it was. Someone called it in and said it was a vehicle fire.

“We all ran around and jumped in cars and grabbed fire extinguishers and immediately went to the vehicle. It was engulfed in flames. There was nothing. They were trapped. Employees, friends of the shop. We tried. We tried. We went through fire extinguishers.”

Walker is survived by his 15-year-old daughter Meadow, who is said to have recently moved to California from Hawaii to be closer to him.

Although the exact cause of the crash is currently unknown, local police have said “speed was at least a contributing factor”.

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Mr Walker, had recently started working on the seventh installment of the Fast and Furious franchise alongside Vin Diesel, Jason Statham and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Production of the film will continue but with some delays, it has been reported.

Further reading:

Profile: Paul Walker

Paul Walker: A Career in Pictures

Video: Paul Walker fans pay tribute at crash site

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