Right place, right time as mysterious hero saves family
Published: March 4, 2006
A Lynn family was saved from a potentially fatal fire by a good Samaritan who “just happened to be there.”
At around 4 a.m., a two-alarm fire broke out at 223 Euclid Ave., trapping Cheryl Young, 39, her husband, Kenneth Anastos, and their 11-year-old son, Daniel, inside.
While on his way to work, neighbor Eric Smith rushed to the scene without thinking twice.
“I heard the window go out and I seen them, they said they had a ladder in the back, I got the ladder and came over,” Smith told WCVB news last night. “I leave my house every morning at the same time and just happened to be there, so, something everyone would have done.”
Anastos recalled the terrifying moments as Smith arrived to help, thick smoke nearly consuming his family.
“The room was filling with heavy black smoke and someone put a ladder up to the window,” Anastos told the Herald. “I handed my son out first and then my wife. I started throwing up and the stranger helped me down the ladder.”
Young said Smith also called 911 from his cell phone, but as quick as he appeared, he disappeared.
“We went walking around when it got light out, thanking people and looking for the hero,” said Kenneth, 38. “But he couldn’t be found.”
“This stranger has our undying friendship and love, ’cause he saved our lives,” Kenneth said, before Smith returned to the scene later that evening.
The fire appeared to have been accidental and may have started from electrical wires or the disposal of cigarettes, said Chief Edward Higgins at the Lynn Fire Department. No one was injured and the fire is still under investigation.
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