DeWayne D. Rodgers saved Pedro Zuniga and his four children from burning, Cumming, Georgia, August 26, 2006. Zuniga, 32, and his two sons and two daughters were asleep in their one-story frame house after fire broke out at night in the attached carport and spread to the house. Rodgers, 48, marble and granite craftsman, lived next door and discovered the fire. He ran to the scene and gained entry to the house through a sliding glass door in the living room. Finding Zuniga and two of the children there, Rodgers ran to the opposite end of the house to look for others. On his return to the living room, Rodgers, who was barefoot and shirtless, had to pass through the area in which flames from the carport were impinging. As Zuniga’s sons fled the house through a door and a window in the living room, Rodgers went to the adjoining bedroom, where he found Zuniga’s older daughter. He opened a window in that room and crawled through it, after which Zuniga handed him his daughters. Zuniga then escaped through the window, and he and Rodgers ran from the house with the girls. Firefighters arrived shortly and extinguished the blaze, but the house was destroyed. Neither Zuniga nor any of his children was burned, but Rodgers sustained burns to his torso, an arm, and a toe, requiring hospital treatment. He recovered.
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