Leonard A. Tutolo helped to save Eleanor Hamilton from suffocation, Harrison, New York, October 24, 1969. Fire broke out in a one-story frame dwelling where Mrs. Hamilton, 82, who was blind, lived alone. She fell to the floor in the living room at the wall opposite the flames, which had ignited upholstered furniture with resultant heavy smoke. Mrs. Hamilton’s screams attracted Tutolo, 34, sanitation department employee, and two other workmen. While one man went to telephone firemen, Tutolo and the other man forced the door of an enclosed porch at the front of the house, on which the fire had broken through one exterior wall. Tutolo and his fellow worker entered the smoke-filled porch, found the living-room door ajar, and continued into that room. The two men passed within five feet of flames as, guided by the cries of Mrs. Hamilton, they located her in the dense smoke. Tutolo picked Mrs. Hamilton up in his arms, assisted by the other man. They returned to the door and emerged from the dwelling. Mrs. Hamilton was hospitalized for smoke inhalation and recovered.
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