Raymond P. Castagner saved Laura-Lee Dow from burning, North Surrey, British Columbia, April 7, 1964. Fire broke out in a storage room on the second floor of a two-story frame dwelling where Laura-Lee, 2, was asleep in one of the bedrooms. Raymond, 15, schoolboy, who was downstairs with Laura-Lee’s mother, noticed smoke and found that flames had burned through onto the stairway landing. Shouting to the mother to telephone firemen, Raymond ran up the stairs, passing within six inches of the flames which were spreading rapidly. The second-floor hall was filled with dense smoke which made his eyes smart and caused him to cough. Crouching, he entered Laura-Lee’s bedroom and hurried to her crib, which was against one wall. Flames covered the opposite wall and half of the ceiling. Raymond removed Laura-Lee from the crib and carried her to a window, which was blocked by a dresser. By then flames were two to three feet high at the top of the stairway. Raymond pulled the dresser aside and broke the glass of the window with his shoulder. Carrying Laura-Lee, he stepped through the opening onto the roof of a porch and jumped thence to the ground eight feet below. Firemen extinguished the flames, but the dwelling was a total loss.
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