A Washington man is being praised for his quick-thinking after he spotted his neighbour’s house ablaze, and ran over just in time to discover a family trapped on the second floor.
What happened next was remarkable, and may have been responsible for saving a little girl’s life.
Mark Hedgpeth says he was at his home in Longview, Washington this past Sunday night when he noticed something strange on his home security camera.
“I noticed on my security cameras a massive amount of light,” Hedgpeth told KGW News in Portland, Oregon.
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That “light” was a fire which had nearly engulfed the duplex next door to Hedgpeth’s home. A moment later, he says he heard his neighbours screaming for help and rushed over to see what was happening.
A dire situation was waiting for him: the fire had trapped a family in both the basement and the second floor of the duplex.
Chiann James was trapped along with her husband, her infant daughter, and two-year-old son on that second story.
She screamed to Hedgpeth from the second story window, getting his attention. Realizing she had only seconds before the fire reached her family, James says her “moma instincts” kicked in and she dropped her baby girl down to Hedgpeth.
“You realize that child’s well-being is in your hands and nothing was going to make me miss [the catch],” Hedgpeth said.
The two-year-old boy was the next to take the perilous leap, followed by James and her husband.
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Incredibly, no one was seriously hurt in the blaze – the family in the basement crawled to safety through a ground floor window.
“I feel like I’m someone who stepped up when someone needed help,” said Hedgpeth. “I would hope and pray anyone would do the same.”
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