LOWELL, MASS. (WHDH) - An alert neighbor, with the help of a passerby, scrambled into action Friday morning and rescued two people from a burning home in Lowell.
Before firefighters arrived at the scene around 11:30 p.m. Thursday night, flames could be seen shooting out of the home on Moore Street, with a mom and her little girl trapped inside.
“I just jumped and yelled. I started screaming, woke up everyone in this house, grabbed my phone and ran outside,” said Ed Lavoie.
Lavoie was next door and saw fire on the home’s porch. He immediately ran over to help get everyone out.
“Banging and pounding on their windows and doors. And then I attempted to kick in the door and I couldn’t do it,” Lavoie said.
A tow truck driver passing by helped Lavoie kick the door in.
“And then all of a sudden black smoke just started bellowing in. The little girl was right in my sights, so I grabbed her and brought her out to the sidewalk,” Lavoie said. “Me and the kid ran up the stairs and we immediately got hit by black dark smoke and we had to back down.”
The girl’s mother was still trapped upstairs with the flames becoming more intense.
“Next thing you know, we’re yelling and screaming and the woman came right down through the smoke,” Lavoie said.
“She couldn’t see anything. When I hit that light in the hallway, it gave her that moment of light to see where to go,” Lavoie said. “She didn’t know where to go. She was yelling for us, but we couldn’t see her or hear her.”
The cause is still under investigation. The girl’s mother was taken to the hospital for the treatment of smoke inhalation. No other injuries were reported.
“I’d say about another 2 minutes, they would have been dead. They would have been dead. Because no one else was out there, just me,” Lavoie said.
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