A homeless man walking in an eastside Las Vegas neighborhood didn’t hesitate to act when he saw plumes of smoke coming from an apartment building.
He went to check it out and then he heard it — the screams of children coming from inside.
Las Vegas Fire and Rescue said Anival Angulo then “jumped a locked gate into the complex” and started pulling a steel, dead bolt-locked security bar door until it bent upward and unlatched.
“I went to the door and saw the babies so I jumped the fence and I pulled on the screen door and I wrapped up the babies and pulled them out,” Angulo told CNN affiliate KSNV about the fire Friday. “I knew I had to get them out.”
Las Vegas Fire and Rescue wrote on its Facebook page that a 3-year-old girl “ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He could see through the smoke the leg of an infant on the floor. He reached down and pulled the infant out.”
The girl and the 10-month-old baby were treated for minor smoke inhalation at the hospital, but are expected to be okay, according to Las Vegas Fire and Rescue.
The two children were being cared for by their grandfather, who was in a back bedroom at the time of the fire.
“When firefighters arrived, flames and smoke were coming out the windows and door… Firefighters went in the front door looking for the children and battled the blaze which was also in the front of the apartment. Firefighters had the fire under control in less than ten minutes,” Las Vegas Fire and Rescue said. “The fire gutted the kitchen and living room, there was heavy heat and smoke damage to the rest of the apartment.”
The fire is believed to have been caused by a pan of cooking grease on the stove and has been ruled accidental, fire investigators said.
“His action certainly saved the children’s life,” Las Vegas Fire and Rescue said of Angulo. No other injuries were reported and the Red Cross is assisting the people displaced by the fire.