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Paul Walker Car Crash Tragedy: Driver's 8-Year-Old Son Tried To Save The Pair

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Dec. 1 2013, Published 10:01 a.m. ET

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Paul Walker's tragic death Saturday afternoon came while he was a passenger being driven by his close pal and business partner, Roger Rodas, who also perished in the fiery crash.

Another emotional victim of the tragedy is Rodas' eight-year-old son, who was on the scene just seconds after the car burst into flames and tried to get to the vehicle to save his dad and Walker.

The crash happened so close to the charity event Walker had been attending that several of the people there heard it and raced to try to help.

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Rodas' son was one of those, eyewitness Jim Torp told the New York Daily News.

"I ran over afterwards, I was trying to find Roger's son," an emotional Torp said. "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."

The Fast and the Furious star had been attending an event to raise funds for victims of Typoon Haiyan.  It was a car show put on by his charity, Reach Out Worldwide, held at Rodas' high end auto shop, Always Evolving, in Valencia, Calif.  Car enthusiast Walker was an investor in the shop.

As the event was wrapping up, at 3:30 pm, the two friends decided to take a cherry red Porsche GT out for a spin.

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Less than a minute later, they smashed into a tree and the car exploded into flames.

Everyone at the event heard it, Walker's friend Antonio Holmes told the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. "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."

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has said that "speed was a factor" in the crash.

"He lived his life and he died fast and furious today," added Torp. "He loved speed, he loved cars, and he had to die this way. He died in a very fast car with his friend.

Walker leaves behind a daughter, 15.  He had just begun work on Fast & Furious 7.

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