NLV Fire Department honors two civilians
Men helped amputee escape blaze at house
When Jose Alvarado saw a man struggling to crawl through a burning home on Saturday, the 41-yearold was scared. But he ran into the fire anyway and helped save the man whose name he doesn’t know.
“It just happened,” Alvarado told reporters outside the burnt North Las Vegas home on Wednesday, days after he and another bystander helped carry a man, who doesn’t have legs, to safety. “You do it because it’s human nature, man. I think anybody would do it.”
Alvarado lives next door to the home on Glendale Avenue, near North 5th Street and Carey Avenue, where the fire started about 9 a.m. Saturday. North Las Vegas Fire Chief Joseph Calhoun presented Alvarado with a civilian medal of valor and said the man’s actions reminded him that “something good is going on” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think for a lot of us what brought a smile to our faces, with all this going on with (the virus) and all that, it was a bright spot,” Calhoun said.
The Fire Department also honored Vincent Torres, a bystander who helped Alvarado pull the man to safety. Torres could not be there Wednesday to receive the medal in person, the department said.
Alvarado said he was getting something from his truck Saturday when he heard cracking glass and saw black smoke billowing through the windows.
He banged on the door until his neighbor, who firefighters believe was sleeping at the time, came out of the house. But then the neighbor started yelling for someone else.
Alvarado said he saw the double amputee drag himself into the living room.
“I went in, and as soon as I saw him, I pulled him right out,” Alvarado said. “I dragged him out because I couldn’t lift him.”
That is when Torres, who was visiting his mother across the street, came to help carry the man to safety, department spokesman Nino Galloway said Wednesday. The man was lying in the grass at Torres’ mother’s house when firefighters found him.
He was taken to University Medical Center with “significant” burns and remained hospitalized Wednesday, Galloway said. The other man who was home during the fire suffered from smoke inhalation but has been released from the hospital.
Galloway said that the fire was ruled accidental and that the amputee told fire investigators he was refilling a cigarette lighter with butane and “possibly hit the striker, which caused the fire.” The department estimated the fire caused $150,000 in damage.
Alvarado thanked the firefighters as he held his medal. He said he was happy he happened to be home to help his neighbors, though he doesn’t know their names.
“I’m usually not here on the weekends, so it was just pure luck, I think,” he said. “I was supposed to be here that day.”
Calhoun said Torres and Alvarado might have saved a life with their actions, and he commended Alvarado for his quick thinking.
“He stepped out of the ordinary and risked his life to save somebody,” Calhoun said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter. Review-journal staff writer Glenn Puit contributed to this report.