Va. Maintenance Worker Saves Man From Apartment Fire

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- -- James Graves doesn't consider himself a hero.

The maintenance supervisor at Woodview Apartments in Newport News said he did what any person would do when he rescued an elderly tenant from his burning apartment Wednesday afternoon.

"I did something because it needed to be done and because there was nobody there to do it," Graves said.

A fire erupted around 1 p.m. in the bedroom of an apartment in 400 block of Manor Road while an 83-year-old man was inside, said Battalion Chief Jerry Reed of the Newport News Fire Department. Firefighters responding to the blaze found the man lying on the ground, Reed said, after Graves had pulled him out of the apartment.

Graves said he rushed to the apartment after residents told him about the fire. When he arrived he saw flames and smoke billowing out of the apartment. He said he broke the sliding glass door on the apartment's patio, crawled into the apartment and pulled the man outside.

Graves said he was concerned about his safety when he went into the burning apartment, but decided to do it in anyway.

"The man was screaming and moaning," he said. "Somebody had to get him out of there."

Graves and the elderly man were taken to an unspecified local hospital for smoke inhalation. The man and his daughter were displaced from their apartment, Reed said.

Marvin Maddicks, who was upstairs with his children when he saw smoke, said he tried twice to save the man from his apartment, but was unsuccessful. Maddicks said he was glad Graves was there.

"He probably saved that man's life," he said.

Copyright 2012 - Daily Press, Newport News, Va.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service