Jermaine McNeil was at his home Sunday night in Lancaster Township with his 2 young children when he heard something unsettling. “Screaming, like really bad screaming. But I didn’t know what it was from so I listened until I heard her fire alarm go off” said McNeil.
His neighbor, who’s 7-months pregnant, had been badly burned after a grease fire started in her kitchen around 6PM. “She was frantic and she was badly hurt. Her feet were burnt bad. I don’ t know about the rest of her body. I just happened to see a lot of blood from her feet on the ground outside” said McNeil.
McNeil grabbed his own fire extinguisher and rushed into her home to put out the flames. “I’m just glad I was here because there was nobody else around but me” said McNeil. Lancaster Township Deputy Fire Chief Glenn Usdin said “if the neighbor hadn’t been there to help her there are many other things that could have happened to make it worse. It occurred when we were having some snow so our response was delayed because the icy and snowy roads.”
Usdin said he didn’t know the pregnant woman’s identity or the extent of her injuries, but said she was taken to the Crozer Burn Center in Philadelphia. Meanwhile McNeil said he’s glad he was able to stop the fire from spreading. “I just wanted to get the fire out because I got a four month old son in there” said McNeil.