UPLAND, Pa. — An elderly woman was saved by a firefighter after a man allegedly tried to rape her Tuesday.
NBC Philadelphia reported that Eleanor Hayes, 77, was inside her home when she heard a knock at the door and was greeted by a man who asked to use her phone, claiming his 4-year-old daughter was missing and he needed to call the police.
She opened her front door slightly and handed the man her phone and acted as if he was contacting someone, according to the report.
“He was gonna hand the phone back to me,” Hayes said. “As I went to reach, he grabbed the door and pushed me back on the floor. I hit the table.
“He said, ‘Take your clothes off, I’m going to rape you,’” Hayes said.
That’s when Upland Borough (Pa.) Firefighter Doug Scott noticed the commotion as he was looking out the window of his firehouse, according to the report.
“I ran across,” Scott said. “I went to the outside screen door and pounded on it three times.”
Firefighter Scott’s presence scared the man off and he fled out the backdoor with the phone still in hand, according to the report.
“By the time I got to the back of the building, he was gone,” Scott said.
Firefighter Scott refuses to take credit for saving Hayes’s life, who suffered cuts and bruises. Yet she calls him a hero, according to the report.
“I owe him everything,” she said.