George Zimmerman in Florida truck crash rescue

GEORGE Zimmerman has reportedly emerged from hiding to help rescue someone who was trapped by an overtued truck.

Sanford Police Department Captain Jim McAuliffe told ABC News that Zimmerman "pulled an individual from a truck that had rolled over" at the intersection of a Florida highway last week.

It is the first known sighting of Zimmerman since the 29-year-old former neighborhood watch volunteer was acquitted this month of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in the 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The jury determined that Zimmerman shot Martin, who was unarmed, in self-defence - a verdict that has sparked hundreds of protests against so-called stand-your-ground laws in the US.

Zimmerman told police he shot Martin only after the African-American teenager physically attacked him; Martin's family and supporters say Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, racially profiled Martin as a potential criminal and wrongly followed him.

Zimmerman's lawyers decided not to pursue a pretrial immunity hearing allowed by Florida's stand-your-ground law. But jurors were told in final instructions by Circuit Judge Debra Nelson that they should acquit Zimmerman if they found "he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary."

Before Florida's stand-your-ground law was passed in 2005, the instruction would have read that Zimmerman "cannot justify his use of force likely to cause death or great bodily harm if by retreating he could have avoided the need to use that force."

Trayvon Martin, 17, was slain in a 2012 shooting in Sanford, Florida., by neighborhood crime-watch captain George Zimmerman.

Zimmerman's lawyers claim he has been the subject of death threats since the trial, and that he has been wearing a bullet-proof vest when he ventures out in public.