This is the moment a man saves the day by jumping through the window of a driverless car that was rolling down a hill after it had been parked without the handbrake on – preventing it from crashing into the houses in its path.

The heroic feat was caught on CCTV on a residential road in the municipality of Castro in the southern Brazilian state of Parana last Sunday (22nd August).

According to local media, the owner of the car, whose identity was not divulged, had parked his vehicle at the top of the hill but had forgotten to apply the handbrake as he nipped into a nearby grocery store.

The unnamed protagonist seen in the footage was in the vicinity at the time and carried out the remarkable feat when he heard a bystander shouting that the empty car was rolling down the road.

The footage shows how the man skilfully jumps through the open window of the car’s front door, reaches over and applies the handbrake.

His legs are seen still dangling through the car’s open window as he brings the vehicle to a halt just inches in front of houses at the end of the road.

Nobody was hurt in the incident and, thanks to the man’s heroics, both car and houses remained intact.

The latest figures suggest there were up to 5,300 road deaths in Brazil last year, despite the massive drop in traffic volumes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Driver distraction is the primary cause of road crashes in Brazil, which has the fourth-highest road fatality rate in the world.