Kenya D. Betty helped to save Dorothy J. Bell from burning, Hale, Michigan, August 8, 2014. Bell, 79, was in the kitchen of her one-story house when a massive explosion occurred in the structure. Walls of the house were blown away, and portions of the roof collapsed into it. Bell was pinned to the floor, trapped by debris, near the center of the house. Driving nearby, Betty, 38, truck driver, responded to the scene after hearing the explosion. Joining a neighbor who had responded, Betty helped Bell’s daughter escape the house through a window. Learning that Bell was still inside, Betty and a second responding neighbor entered the house through the front door and found her, trapped under the partially collapsed roof, at a point about 10 feet from the door. They could not pull her from the debris. By then the back of the house was on fire, with flames quickly growing and spreading. The first neighbor had entered the house through the garage, and he lifted the partially collapsed roof so that Betty and the second neighbor could free Bell. Each grasping her by a hand, Betty and the second neighbor dragged Bell to the front door and outside. As the men fled to safety with her, a wall of the house collapsed, and the interior became engulfed by flames. Bell required four days’ hospitalization for treatment of lacerations and a head injury, and she recovered.
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