Two men make heroic rescues in apartment fire

Phillip Blanks was a Marine and before that a star football player in high school. Recently, his athletic instincts helped save a toddler from an apartment fire that killed the child’s mother.

On July 3, Blanks, 28, was at the scene of a fire engulfing a Phoenix apartment complex. He saw a terrified woman on a third-floor balcony with a child.

“People started yelling for the lady to throw her kids down,” Blanks said.

The mother dropped her son over the railing. A wrenching cellphone video shows Blanks sprinting toward the 3-year-old boy and diving to catch him before he could hit the ground.

After the child’s mother dropped her son from the balcony, she turned and went back into the burning apartment. She didn’t return. Word started to spread below that a child was in the apartment, and that’s when a second heroic rescue took place.

Another bystander, D’Artagnan Alexander, 42, ran inside the building and through the flames to save the 8-year-old girl.

“I have a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old, so when I heard there were kids in there, that really hit my heart,” said Alexander, who immediately parked his car and ran into the smokefilled building.

“I heard someone scream for help, and I found the girl on the floor and carried her outside,” said Alexander.

“I didn’t have time to think; my body just kicked into action and I went in.”

But beyond the two strangers who were able to rescue the siblings, it’s Rachel Long — the mother who gave her life for her children — who is “the real hero,” Blanks said.