A pair of London men are being honoured for their heroics in rescuing a family of five from a burning home.
Doug O’Loughlin and Adam Mortezof received Citizen Involvement Awards in a ceremony held Monday at London Fire Station No. 1.
"I'm humbled. This is something that I did not expect to happen," says Mortezof. "To receive this award in front of my beautiful wife and my beautiful daughter is a dream come true."
O’Loughlin and Mortezof were chatting outside the morning of April 30 when they spotted smoke billowing from behind a house at 62 Duke St. The two men rushed to the home to find the Demelo family trapped inside by flames blocking their only exit.
The pair instructed the family to kick out the screen to a front window and began physically pulling each member out. Moments after the last family member was pulled to safety thick black smoke began pouring out of the window.
"We saw the smoke and we reacted," says O’Loughlin. "We were just fortunate that we could get them out when we did. It's something you think anyone would do."
Al Braatz, the district fire chief who responded to the fire call, says it was a dramatic scene for a civilian to come across.
"To go to the front of the house and lift the people out through the front window, extricate them from that house was quite a task for a human to do," says Braatz. "They were lifting from shoulder height and getting them down to the ground. It was a major event that saved lives."
Mortezof says fumes from the fire left his throat burning for days but as he was lying in bed that night one thought ran through his head.
"Growing up my mom always told me to tell everyone you love them before you say goodnight... I'm laying there thinking 'thank god this family has a second chance to, that they can actually tell one another that they love each other," says Mortezof.
Braatz notes O’Loughlin and Mortezof demonstrated good judgement by not attempting to enter the burning home.
Danny Demelo, 10, who is credited with waking and alerting the rest of his family to the fire is being nominated by the London Fire Department for a provincial award for his actions.
The cause of the April 30 fire has not been determined.
