Humble Matt’s flaming heroic
A HERO cop has spoken about how he stared down a wall of flames to pull an elderly couple to safety as their home was being destroyed by fire.
Mundingburra police constable Matt Woodham was with his wife on the way to go shopping when he was flagged down and alerted to a house on fire in O’Reilly St, Mundingburra, on Tuesday afternoon.
The next three to five minutes were a smoke- filled blur of flames and heat as Constable Woodham’s firefighting training from almost a decade spent in the Navy kicked in.
He got his wife to call triple- 0 as he ran to the house where Elaine and Keith Peacock were inside.
He could see Elaine near the front door as windows were breaking and fire took hold of the front of the house.
“The front room was engulfed within the first 90 seconds and when I was walking Elaine down the front stairs the flames were out over the balcony over our heads.”
When Elaine told him her husband Keith was still inside Constable Woodham knew he had to go back.
“By the time I ran back up the front stairs the whole front of the house was engulfed and the windows had started to explode,” he said. “The heat from the fire was terrible.”
As flames started coming out the front door he raced around to the side of the house and saw Keith standing near the back door.
“Smoke was pouring out the back door and the only reason I saw the old man was the flames behind him lighting up his silhouette,” he said.
Running into the back of the house, Constable Woodham found Keith, picked him up and carried him to the far side of the house.
Constable Woodham then instructed neighbours to divert traffic and began helping put out spot fires next door, while assessing other dangers including the car and gas bottle under the Peacocks’ home.
When firefighters and other emergency services arrived he handed over to them and “finished my shopping so I could still go to work that night”.
The Peacocks were spared serious injury and Constable Woodham only had a few blisters to his hand and a heat patch on his back.