Neighbors Rescue Couple From Tenn. House Fire
Source The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
Neighbors rescued an elderly Mendenhall Estates couple from a house fire early Thursday morning by smashing a window to get inside and pull the couple to safety.
The Memphis Fire Department responded to the home in the 3000 block of Basswood about 3 a.m., according to neighbors. Shortly before, residents in the area had awoken and seen the house engulfed in flames.
"It was bright. It looked like daytime," said Manuel De la Cruz, who lives with his cousin next door to the couple.
De la Cruz and several relatives, including his 33-year-old cousin Ramon Villatoro, left their house after realizing it had also caught fire. They soon noticed the elderly couple next door had yet to emerge from their burning home.
"He says he saw their trucks in the driveway and he remembered the people who live there, but he didn't see them outside," De la Cruz translated for Villatoro, who does not speak English.
A frantic knock on the couple's door went unanswered, so Villatoro and an unidentified man who lives on Basswood broke through a front window and went inside.
Villatoro -- the couple's neighbor for two years -- was cut by glass near his right eye in the rescue. His fortuitous partner was also cut by glass, but on his arm. They each received minor medical attention.
The couple, believed to be in their 80s, appeared to have suffered minor burns in the fire, De la Cruz said. An MFD spokesman was unavailable Thursday morning to confirm their condition.
No other injuries were reported.
The couple's home was gutted in the blaze, leaving behind little in the house except ash and smoldering furniture. Flames ate through the roof. Its charred wooden frame splintered sunlight over the damage Thursday morning.
Also destroyed in the fire was the couple's two vehicles and a bedroom wall of the Villatoro home next door.
Copyright 2012 - The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tenn.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
