Marvin Rodriguez, D.

Marvin D. Argueta R. helped rescue a man from burning, Flemington, New Jersey, November 22, 2021. The 59-year-old man who breathed with the assistance of bottled oxygen, told authorities he had been laying on his couch and smoking when, suddenly, the living room of his second-floor apartment was in flames. Rodriguez’s brother, 23, was returning home when he saw flames coming from the man’s living room window and heard an explosion. The brother summoned Rodriguez, 35, landscaper, and another brother, 29, who shared an apartment in another wing of the same building, and, together, they kicked down the man’s front door. The door opened into a narrow, enclosed stairway which led to the man’s apartment. Rodriguez and his brothers, singly, climbed the steps and tried to enter the burning living room off the top stairway landing but were each turned back by smoke and exited. Recalling he had a flashlight on his cellphone, Rodriguez used it as he re-entered and rushed up the stairway. Peering through thick smoke, he heard the man calling for help on the living room floor 8 feet away and moved to grasp him in a bear hug from behind. As Rodriguez dragged the man to the top of the stairway, his brothers appeared and each grasped the man’s legs, and all three carried him down the stairway. At one point, an explosion caused a flash that burned Rodriguez’s right ear and face and blew a chair into the stairway. The youngest brother threw the chair out of their path and the brothers carried the man outside onto a railed-in concrete porch, where they laid him in a corner away from the figuring doorway as police arrived. Police then moved the man over the rail farther to safety, where paramedics treated the man, who was then flown to a hospital burn center. Police stated the man has recovered. Rodriguez was treated at a hospital for his burns and smoke inhalation, and recovered.