DANVERS, MASS. (WHDH) - A quick-thinking teenager is being credited with saving his host mother and her dog from their burning home in Danvers.
Martin Moioffer, 18, was playing video games upstairs when he noticed smoke billowing up from downstairs.
His host mother, Robin Kellow, was in the shower and Moioffer knew he needed to act fast.
He ran downstairs, wet a towel and tried to smother the flames as they threatened to consume a couch and the room.
When that didn’t work, Moioffer filled a bucket from under the sink with water but failed put out the flames.
That’s when he ran back up the stairs, grabbed his host mother, and led her out of the house to safety.
“I heard her behind me and so she was standing somewhere [at the top of the stairs],” he said. “I didn’t even see her until she was right on the stairs.”
“I can’t imagine standing here and not knowing we are at the top of the stairs,” Kellow said as she and Moioffer walked through the charred house she once called home.
Moioffer then went back inside and continued to try and extinguish the flames but it was too intense so they called 911.
But Mioffer’s act of heroism was not yet complete, he ran back into the burning home when he realized Kellow’s dog was missing.
“So I ran in and back up the stairs and then came into the room directly next to me and that’s where the dog was,” he said. “Then I ran back down.”
Thankful that she is alive and uninjured, Kellow said she is glad Moioffer was there.
Otherwise, she said she may have been trapped in the shower,
“With no concern for his own safety, like to me, that is a hero,” she said. “That is a hero.”
Kellow is hosting several hockey players in her home as they play for East Coast Elite League’s East Coast Spartans.
She and the players are staying at a hotel while they figure out what to do next.
The home is a total loss and may need to be demolished.
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