Neighbors rushed to save a woman from a burning house in Carlsbad Monday. The youngest rescuer was a 13-year-old boy.
Matt Shearin, a student at Oakcrest Middle School, said he heard his father screaming about a fire three doors down.
One of the neighbors said he heard a woman screaming from a second story window of the home on Corte La Paz just before 7 a.m.
“I looked out and there were flames coming out and I said ‘Oh God, it’s not good,’” Shearin told NBC 7 San Diego.
Without thinking, he immediately rushed to help his father.
“He's trying to get the ladder but his back kind of hurt,” he explained.
So Shearin grabbed the ladder from his dad, ran under a bush and hoisted the ladder to the window.
Another neighbor climbed the ladder and grabbed an 82-year-old woman out of the house.
Shearin’s father hosed the house down with water his mother called 911.
When the engines arrived, they reported flames out of that window,” said Carlsbad Fire Chief Mike Davis. “She would’ve been forced with a terrible decision to have to make.”
“When you’re in your mid-80s, making a jump even from the first floor is really hard,” Davis said.
An hour later, the woman's cat was rescued.
The 82-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with minor burns and smoke inhalation.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.