WATERBURY, Conn. --
Workers at Waterbury Hospital rushed into a burning building and rescue people inside on Monday. For one security guard, this wasn't his first rescue.
The guard rescued people from a home on the same street almost three years ago.
On Monday, Alan Copeland and two others on the Waterbury Hospital security team ran inside the burning building after spotting the fire near the hospital.
"It was thick, thick black smoke," said Joseph Jacovino.
"We went up the hill and started knocking on the doors," said Copeland. "People were sleeping. They didn't know what was going on."
Copeland may seem calm about the whole incident because he's done it before. The last time was at a home, also across the street from the hospital, when it caught fire in 2008. In that fire he rescued people on the second floor.
Not this time.
"I had to knock down one door and get someone out of the third floor," he said.
Copeland, his co-workers and a Waterbury police officer were able to get all of the tenants out of the home before firefighters could arrive.
Copeland joked he's not planing to run into any more burning buildings anytime soon.
"This was my second and last time," he said.
Officials at Waterbury Hospital said the men would be mentioned in the next hospital newsletter.
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