CLEVELAND, Ohio - Two families are safe from a house fire, thanks to firefighters, police and a particularly heroic neighbor.
At 11 a.m. Friday, Cleveland firefighters were dispatched to Sacramento Avenue near West 139th after a neighbor saw smoke at nearby home and called 911, said Lt. Mike Norman, a spokesman for the city’s fire department.
As firefighters were on the way, neighbor Tyler Sowden, 16, jumped into action.
“He heard screaming. ... He looked out of the back of his house and saw smoke,” Norman said of Sowden.
That was when Sowden grabbed his own ladder and rushed to the house. There, he found three people -a mother, a 7-year-old child and a 10-month-old baby - on the roof above the front porch, Norman said.
Sowden placed his ladder against the side of the house and helped all three people get down safely, the fire department said in a social media post.
“I don’t know what was going through my head,” the youth told Fox8 News. “I’m glad (my Dad) told me how to use a ladder.”
Meanwhile, Cleveland police officers James Bellomy and Kerry Adams happened to be driving past the house after picking up lunch when they smelled smoke, Norman said.
The two officers got out of their car – they actually got there before the firefighters – and helped an elderly man and a dog leave an adjacent house that also suffered damage from the fire, Norman said.
Some of the residents suffered from smoke inhalation and were taken to a hospital, Norman said.
The fire caused $170,000 in damage to the main house, $10,000 in damage to an adjacent house, and displaced seven people, who are receiving assistance from the Red Cross.
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