A New Mexico construction worker is being praised for his heroism after rescuing a 2-month-old baby and a toddler from a burning apartment building in northeast Albuquerque.
Mason Fierro and his fellow workers were putting a new roof on the structure next door when the apartment complex burst into flames, KOAT-TV reported.
Without hesitating, Fierro sprang into action.
He explained to the newstation that he heard a man pleading for help, yelling from a second-story window.
“We saw him hanging out of the window with his baby, his 2-month-old baby,” Fierro told KOAT-TV.
That’s when Fierro performed the valorous act. “He dropped her. I caught her,” Fierro told the outlet.
“Then they bring out another little boy, two or three years old, then we caught him as well,” Fierro said.
Video from the incident, obtained by the newstation, show the children dangling from the smoke-engulfed building. Fierro can be seen with his arms reaching upward as the children were released to him.
While Fierro is being credited for saving the lives of the young children, he shared with KOAT-TV that he couldn’t have done it without the help of his brother Jermaine Gallien — who was also on the scene.
“We had each other’s back, and it was just an all-in thing,” Fierro said.
Nonetheless, Gallien wants his brother to take all the credit.
“Just seeing him catch that baby girl and baby boy, it touched me. He stepped up and really became the hero of the day,” Gallien told KOAT-TV.
After getting the children to safety, the brother’s didn’t stop there. They then went from door-to-door to alert people in the building that firefighters had arrived.
The Albuquerque Fire and Rescue revealed in a statement on Facebook that the “fire did not spread to adjacent buildings.”
The father and the two small children were evaluated for minor smoke inhalation and there were no other injuries.
“My son is traumatized, my daughter is thankfully too young to remember it, you know, but we’re just glad we’re here today,” the father Gabriel Lascano told KOB 4.
He explained that when the fire broke out he and his wife Candace Holmes had to act fast.
“They mean the world to us, imagine having to drop them out of a two-story window,” Lascano told KOB 4. “You’re not sure if you’re going to make it, it’s an awful feeling.”
At this time, the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Lt. Tom Ruiz, a spokesman for Albuquerque Fire Rescue, told CNN he is thankful Fierro was on the scene.
“Those people were in dire need of rescue (and) weren’t able to wait on us,” Ruiz told the outlet. “Those kids are alive because of what those construction workers did quickly and concisely.”
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