Dominique Hardy wasn’t thinking of his own safety when he rushed into a burning trailer home in the metro Atlanta suburb of Clayton County.
He was thinking of his neighbor.
“Whoever’s in there I have to get them out,” he told Atlanta news station WSB. “I cannot let them die in there like that.”
The fire started early Monday at a home on Daniel Drive, the news station reported. Hardy said he saw the blaze from a trailer next door.
“That’s when I started running down the trailer, beating, like, ‘Boom, boom, boom, is anyone in there?’” he told WSB.
He didn’t hear a response, but he noticed an air conditioning unit in one of the home’s windows.
“So I snatched the air conditioner and busted out the window,” Hardy said.
Equipped with a flashlight, the man said next his next action was “I’m shining my light in the window and I’m, like, ‘Oh, wow, he’s right there under a mattress.’”
He told Channel 2 he then, jumped through the window and tried to pull the man out.
“I grabbed his pants and his arm and pulled and got him to the area right by the window, so there wasn’t as much smoke,” he said.
At that point, police officers and Zachary Wilson, another neighbor, pitched in.
“One of the female officers laid down like a table and the others got on top and tried to get inside but fell and they were asking for a ladder,” Wilson said.
He grabbed his ladder and helped officials safely lift the man through the window. He was taken to the hospital but has since made a full recovery, WSB reported.
Two police officers with injuries were treated on the scene, and Hardy had only a burn on his arm, according to WSB.
“Everything worked out perfectly,” he said.
