WEYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - A Massachusetts National Guardsman braved the flames to evacuate a home on fire in Weymouth on the Fourth of July.
Sergeant First Class Adam Ayer had spent the Fourth of July in Boston, where he fired cannons on the Esplanade with the National Guard at the annual fireworks spectacular.
After the show, he stopped in Weymouth for a cold drink and saw a house on fire across the street from the store. He said the whole back of the house was ablaze.
“I just shot out of the parking lot, stopped in front of the driveway of the house, and I just went running toward the house,” Ayer said.
Ayer called 911, but before firefighters arrived, he heard someone inside the house trying to escape.
“I could see through the window. There were still people walking around inside the house. I told the dispatcher, ‘I’ve gotta go,’” Ayer said. “I hung up on her, and I ran into the house.”
A man named Leo lives in the house, and he said he woke up to a man yelling in his living room.
“I looked out my back window and I seen the flames,” Leo said. “I was still half asleep, I was like ‘do I have time to put my boots on?’, and he told me, ‘no, you’d better grab ’em and run’, so it was a real good fire.”
Ayer credits his military training with teaching him how to handle dangerous situations.
“You don’t have time to think. You only have time to react,” Ayer said.
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