Hospital visit after helping out
When Sam Winter, 19, heard a smoke alarm blaring somewhere in the darkness on his walk home last week he acted on instinct.
Jumping a fence he ran on to a High St property where he could see flames climbing a wall inside the house through a window.
‘‘I just felt like I needed to get them out of the house, I didn’t know how bad it was,’’ the Ha¯ wera teenager said.
Winter was one of the passersby who helped with the house fire on High St on Monday around 9.30pm last week. He was admitted to hospital following the incident due to smoke inhalation.
‘‘I was ready to kick their door down because I didn’t know what to do,’’ the Ha¯ wera teenager said. ‘‘I was like I need to help them out, because I started to hear older people’s voices in the house.’’
Before Winter had the chance to kick down the door a woman surfaced.
‘‘She came out and I told her to stay out,’’ Winter said. ‘‘I asked if there was anyone else in the house and she said her husband was.’’
Winter asked the woman where her husband was and she said he was in the kitchen trying to put the fire out.
‘‘I could kind of see my way in, it was full of like grey smoke,’’ Winter said. ‘‘I just walked to the back of the house and there was the fire all up the wall and him trying to put it out with the jug.’’
Winter tried to convince the man to get out of the house but he refused until he put the fire out.
‘‘It was already starting to get really smoky and I was pretty much standing there with him and I was starting to inhale it a bit,’’ he said.
Winter decided he would wait it out and be there incase the man passed out from smoke inhalation.
‘‘I thought all right, I’ll just stand here and if he drops he drops I’ll pick him up and run him out.’’
Winter said once the fire was out the man still refused to leave the house. He thanked another passerby who came through the smoky house and convinced the man to leave.
The ambulance and Fire and Emergency New Zealand arrived shortly after. Winter was admitted to hospital and had to stay until 1am when his blood pressure dropped.
‘‘I don’t really want to be known as a hero because I was just doing what I thought was right,’’ he said.