By Pat Reavy
Deseret News
TAYLORSVILLE, Utah — Two people were being called heroes by firefighters Friday after pulling a semiconscious woman out of a burning house.
Nicole Yeaman was driving home from picking her child up at preschool about 12:30 p.m. when she noticed smoke coming from a house down the street from her own, near 6400 South and 1800 West.
Yeaman said she put her car in park, told her child to wait and ran to the front door. She tried to open the door, but discovered it couldn’t open all the way because a person was semiconscious on the floor blocking the entrance.
“It was very black and very smoky. It was very hard to see. She was just lying on the ground almost unconscious,” she said. “She was in a daze. She was very disoriented and her eyes were closed. I grabbed her underneath her arms and told her, ‘We’ve gotta get out of here. We’ve gotta get out of here.”’
Larry Gillette, a former state corrections investigator, had just returned home at about the same time when he heard Yeaman’s vehicle idling out front. He looked out toward the front yard to see what was happening.
“She was helping the lady that lived there get out of the house. All I did was help her a few more steps,” said Gillette, who stressed that he believed Yeaman was the real hero. “She looked down and saw smoke coming out of the basement window.”
When the two got the homeowner to the edge of the driveway, Yeaman tried to keep her conscious by talking to her and asking her questions.
The homeowner said she was asleep in a basement bedroom when the fire started. She was able to crawl up the stairs and get to the front door before she collapsed. There were no other people or pets inside the house, Yeaman said.
After the woman was out of the house, Gillette grabbed a garden hose and shot water through a basement window.
“It was blazing from floor to ceiling. The mattress was fully engulfed in flames,” Gillette said.
Gillette said he couldn’t believe the fire was contained to just one room.
The woman was later transported to a local hospital and treated for smoke inhalation, Unified Fire Authority Capt. Wade Russell said.
Yeaman said she planned on visiting the woman Friday night. But as of late Friday afternoon, Yeaman, who just moved into the neighborhood a week ago, still didn’t know the homeowner’s name.
Damage to the house was estimated at $50,000. The cause of the fire was still under investigation Friday.
Yeaman said she’s shocked to be called a “hero.”
“I feel really good,” she said. “I didn’t want someone hurt and to die because if I were to just sit there I would blame myself. It was just an instinct I went (inside the house). I just thought someone was in there.”
Copyright 2008 The Deseret News Publishing Co.