Michael R. Baeckmann saved Christina M. and Victoria R. Arostegui from burning, Phelps, Wisconsin, January 8, 1982. Christina, 2, and Victoria, one month old, were asleep in a basement bedroom of a frame house when fire broke out near the room. Michael, 13, schoolboy, also asleep in the house, was awakened by fire and attempted to call the fire department, but he was driven back by heat and smoke. Despite an outside temperature of minus 35 degrees and clad only in undershorts, Michael ran from the house with his infant brother to his grandmother’s house next door, where he instructed her to call the fire department. With strong winds creating a wind chill estimated to be minus 80 degrees, Michael, barefoot, returned to the house but found the door blocked by flames. Breaking a window to the basement bedroom, Michael climbed into the room, which was then burning, and lifted Christina and Victoria through the window. He then climbed through the window and ran with the girls back to his grandmother’s house. All were hospitalized; the girls recovered from smoke inhalation, and Michael from smoke inhalation, cuts on his hands and feet, and frostbite.
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