YORK TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A 31-year-old woman was rescued in dramatic fashion on Wednesday morning after police and firefighters responded to a burning home in York Township, Medina County.
According to the Medina County Sheriff's Office, it happened just before 11 a.m. in the 7700 block of Branch Road.
Crews responded to the home after the woman called 911 and said she was trapped. Authorities said the 911 operator stayed in contact with the woman while crews responded.
Sheriff's deputies, firefighters from Erhart, York, Medina and Chatham, as well as an off-duty fireman from another county, "worked in a very challenging and fire-laden environment" to rescue the woman by pulling her out of the basement through a small window.
"[We] had located the victim in a basement window. I believe it was on the east side of the house. Most of the house was involved in fire at that point and they were trying to get her out. They were not able to pull her. The basement window was really small," Medina Fire Chief, Larry Walters said.
You can watch the rescue below:
Footage of the fire reveals officials were running out of options to pull the woman to safety.
Walters, in a quick-thinking decision, sheds part of his gear and slides through the basement window feet first.
He estimated he was in the basement with her for three to four minutes.
"The smoke conditions continued to get worse by the moment. But I mostly focused on helping her get up high enough to where the rescuers on the outside could get a hold of her," Walters added. "I considered what I was doing to be the right thing. It certainly was not a situation where I felt like writing her off for the benefit of my safety was the right thing to do."
Using a multi-purpose pry bar, Walters said the woman used it as a stepping stool.
Officials were then able to pull her from the house and across the front lawn.
The woman was taken to Cleveland Clinic Medina Hospital, treated and released. Additionally, four members of the sheriff's office and two firefighters were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation and minor injuries. They have since been released.
Walters doesn't see what he did on Branch Road as heroic, just his job.
His peers, like Medina County Sheriff's Captain Kris Conwill and Erhart-York Fire Chief Jason Creamer, described the mission as not only heroic but as divine intervention.
"Without a doubt, all the actions there at that window were heroic and Chief Walters went above and beyond," Creamer said.
"We did a debrief of the incident and there were words like divine intervention and miraculous when you look at the video and see the area, where both this lady and Chief Walters came out of," Conwill added. "There really wasn't much left of the house that wasn't on fire."
Walters said he's grateful to have been surrounded by a team of professionals.
"It's really important to point out that there is no way I could have accomplished that without all of the other rescuers that were there assisting," Walters noted.
The cause of the fire is unknown.
"This incident serves as a reminder to the critical nature of each component of the safety services environment. Dispatchers, law enforcement and fire personnel all played a vital role in saving the individual from an extremely peril situation," the Medina sheriff's office said in a statement.
The family confirmed with News 5 that two dogs died in the fire. One cat made it out alive.
