Lisa McNairy helped to rescue Charles C. Rhodes from burning, Circleville, Ohio, October 15, 2015. Rhodes, 66, who required a cane to walk, was in the lower level of the split-level house where he was residing after fire broke out at night in the attached, adjacent garage, engulfing it. Discovering the fire, a next-door neighbor, McNairy, 50, retail associate, responded to the scene and alerted a man who was asleep on an upper level of the house. After that man left the structure, McNairy entered it through its back door to check on its other occupants and then, going to the front of the house, learned that Rhodes was still inside. Entering through the front door, she crawled about 12 feet through dense smoke to the stairs extending to the lower level, but, unable to breathe, she exited the house for air. Twice more she re-entered and advanced to the stairs. Flames by then were entering the lower level from the garage, and heat was intense. Rhodes had crawled toward the stairs, and the man whom McNairy alerted located him there. He and McNairy dragged Rhodes from the stairs to the front door and out of the house, the lower level of which was shortly engulfed by flames. Rhodes required hospitalization, including surgery, for treatment of severe burns. McNairy was given oxygen at the scene, and she recovered.
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