By Diana Marcum
The Fresno Bee
FRESNO, Calif. — After the fire engines, ambulances and TV cameras left, 32-year-old Daniel Medellin came out to sit on his porch and look at the burned house across the street.
“I’ve been through a bunch of stuff, but I’ve never pulled a man out of a fire before,” he said quietly. “I’m sitting right here thinking about all kinds of things.”
Two men lived in the house at 443 S. Backer Ave. One is partly blind, one uses a wheelchair. Neighbors say they seldom saw them outside, didn’t know them by name.
But on Monday, three of the neighbors pulled the men from their house as it burned. Both survived. One suffered serious burns, the other smoke inhalation.
The fire began early Monday afternoon when the man with failing eyesight was smoking in bed. He dropped his cigarette and couldn’t find it, according to the Fresno Fire Department.
Medellin’s two sons, out riding their bicycles in the southeast Fresno neighborhood, saw smoke.
“Daddy, Daddy, the house across the street is smoking,” they shouted.
At the same time, Junior Alvarez, 36, who lives next door to the house that burned, came out through his front door. He was surprised by what he initially thought was fog -- before realizing it was smoke.
He heard Medellin shout at him: “Junior! Grab your crowbar!”
Alvarez popped open a thick, heavy security screen (a common prevention against crime on this street) and kicked in the front door.
“Then I took a deep breath and went in,” he said. “I’m reaching for him. I can hear him saying, ‘I’m right here, I’m right here.’ But I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I just grabbed and then I felt him and dragged him out.”
Medellin saw Alvarez appear in the living room with the man and went to help carry him.
“You always see those movies where someone runs into a burning building and runs right back out saving someone. But it’s not like that,” he said. “There was so much smoke, it was so black. We couldn’t see anything.”
They got out of the house, laid the first man on the grass -- and heard the security door slam shut behind them. They had to use the crowbar again to get it open.
Alvarez tried to go back in, but he couldn’t breathe at all. He was having something he’s very familiar with -- an asthma attack.
“Then Rabbit runs in from behind us,” Medellin said. “Other people were gathering, but they were standing way back from the fire, just watching. But Rabbit went in on all fours.”
“Rabbit” is the childhood nickname of Carlos Luna, who works as a repossession agent and lives down the street.
Luna got farther into the house, felt around for the second man and pulled him out on the lawn.
“I couldn’t see anything. I just felt around until I touched him, and when I pulled him out, I saw his pants were on fire,” Luna said. “Someone put it out with a garden hose.”
The fire call came in at 12:26 p.m.
Even though firefighters arrived in less than four minutes, said Fresno Fire spokesman Ken Shockley, “the neighbors’ efforts proved critical.”
The Fire Department doesn’t encourage people to take such risks, he said.
“But we live in a good community. People do these things. They risk their lives.”
Once firefighters were on the scene, Medellin hugged his two neighbors.
“Rabbit, you’re a hero,” he told Luna, whom he’s known since childhood.
Later, sitting on his porch looking at the dripping two-story structure across the street, Medellin said he was having trouble taking it all in.
“I’ve been in a lot of trouble. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my life,” said Medellin, who grew up around gangs and now restores cars. “Maybe you wouldn’t even like the guy sitting next to you, if you knew everything in my past. But we went into a burning building and saved two old men. We helped someone, and it feels good.”
Copyright 2008 The Fresno Bee