Woman rescues neighbor from burning home in Pennsylvania

By Anne Shannon

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    EAST LAMPETER TOWNSHIP, Pennsylvania (WGAL) — A Lancaster County woman is being called a hero after she helped get her neighbor to safety when a fire broke out at his home Monday morning.

The fire started around 9 a.m. at the home on Hickory Drive in East Lampeter Township.

“I came back from school, and I noticed that there was smoke coming out of his windows and his door,” Katrina Aviles said.

Aviles saw her elderly neighbor was still inside the burning house. He told her he couldn’t get out.

“I ran over to him and I put his arms around my neck and I carried him onto my back. And I told him, ‘We have to go,'” she said.

“The fire was in the living room, two or three stuffed chairs and tables and such. We knocked the fire down pretty quick. There was a lot of heat and a lot of smoke. We had some small fires from the heat throughout the house that we were able to knock down and get ventilated,” said Scott Hershey, with the Lafayette Fire Company.

Firefighters said the fire started in the homeowner’s oxygen machine, which apparently had a malfunction.

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