A woman trapped in a burning home was rescued by her son and two good Samaritans in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Sunday morning.
“We were on our way to brunch, and so off to the left I saw a big cloud of black smoke,” Sarah Brown said. “I was like, ‘Oh, it’s probably a house.’”
She and her Marine husband got there before fire crews and saw Welford Lewis trying to break a window to get in to rescue his mother, 84-year-old Susie Lewis.
“He said that his mother was right inside the window,” Brown said.
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Brown and her husband raced over to the window as the son climbed back inside the house.
“Pouring black smoke,” Brown said. “A huge cloud coming out the windows.”
“We just waited,” she said. “It felt like forever, but he came back to the window.”
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Struggling to breathe, the son jumped out.
Brown’s husband reached in to pull Susie Lewis to safety.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Brown said. “I was in shock. I didn’t think she was going to make it out, so when we got her out and we laid her on the blanket, she was breathing, her eyes were open, everyone was telling her, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ The neighbors love her to death.”
“If it wasn’t for she and her husband, this would not have been a happy outcome,” neighbor Lisa West said. “She’s a real live angel; she really is. I have goosebumps again. They’re a godsend. There’s no other explanation for that.”
“I’m no angel,” Brown said. “Right place, right time.”
Welford Lewis said there was never a second thought in his mind when he jumped back into their burning house.
“I had to get in there to get her,” he said. “I’m not going to let her die. I love my Mom.”
Susie Lewis suffered smoke inhalation, but her condition is improving.
