(KSDK) – Two strangers teamed up to save an elderly woman in a wheelchair from her burning home.
It all happened around 4:30 p.m. in the 4100 block of McRee Avenue in the Botanical Heights neighborhood.
Capt. Leon Whitener of the St. Louis Fire Department had just gotten off work. He said he was in his work car when he heard an alarming scanner call.
“I heard the radio transmission for a fire in a house with a person trapped,” he explained.
Realizing he was in the area, Whitener said he knew he had to help.
“When I got there, there were people outside. I asked them if someone was still inside and they said yes,” he recalled.
Without hesitation and being the only person on scene so far, Whitener ran into the burning building. But he wasn’t alone.
“I was asleep. I just got done working a 12-hour shift. I woke up. I heard hysterical screaming. A woman was yelling fire!” explained nearby resident Raymond Rayford.
Rayford came outside and upon seeing the fire, quickly followed Whitener on a daring rescue attempt.
“He was the first guy I saw. The first one. He ran in there. I ran right behind him. It was just instinct. Just instinct,” Rayford explained.
When the pair got inside, Rayford said it was extremely smoky. But eventually, they found the woman trapped and unable to escape.
“There was a lot of furniture in the hallway. She could not get out of the apartment or out of the building,” Whitener said.
Rayford added, “We had to lift her up past the banister to get her to safety.”
Fortunately, she is going to be okay. But soon after she was rescued and fire crews arrived, things took a turn.
