Suzanne Fortin doesn’t consider herself a hero, but her neighbours certainly do.
The 70-year-old is credited with saving the life of David Munce on Saturday when a fire broke out in his trailer at a Duncan, B.C., RV park.
“She’s the hero of the park, Suzanne, who saved David. If had been three, five minutes more than that they both would have been blown up,” Munce’s sister Donna Liptak told Global News.
Fortin was at home Saturday afternoon when she heard a large bang. Initially thinking it might have been a fallen tree, Fortin headed over to check on Munce, who she’d developed a friendship with over the last decade.
When she opened the door to his trailer, she found a hellish scene.
“All material was blown apart. I had to push over material to get to him. There was a line of fire behind his cooking stove, about four inches high all along, and in the back there was a big line of fire as well,” she said.
“I see David in the front and he’s kind of frozen there, in pain, pain, pain, so I said, ‘Let’s go, my friend, we gotta go.’ I just grabbed him and we got out of the trailer.”
Fortin sat Munce down in a chair and tended to burns on his face and head with a wet towel as paramedics arrived.
Minutes later, the entire trailer went up in flames.
“If I would have delayed, I would have never saved him,” she said.
Munce was taken to Victoria General Hospital where he’s been placed in an induced coma. He has burns to his face, head, and thighs, as well as pneumonia.
“We don’t know how it’s going to be,” Liptak said, adding that her brother likely faces a long recovery.
But he’ll have help. The RV park has already offered him a new trailer once he’s out of hospital and on the mend.
He’ll also have friends like Fortin around.
“She’s like a counsellor for him,” Liptak said.
For Fortin the incident has added meaning. Her husband died suddenly on Feb. 23, after becoming ill.
“I lost my husband, but (David) is alive. That’s what I feel good about,” she said.
“If your heart tells you to do something, just follow it. Because it is what it is. There’s no other way.”