Police said Friday a good Samaritian helped save the lives of a couple from Luzerne County.
Kathy Cusatus is a school bus driver based near Drums. Cusatus said her real life drama began as she was making her normal bus run in Butler Township.
"To see it and to just ignore it and to maybe read in the paper the next day that people suffocated. How could you live with yourself if you just ignored something like that?" Cusatus asked.
She was driving along when she noticed thick black smoke coming out of the chimney of a home. "I thought people might be sleeping in there and if it's the furnace, if they're breathing all this stuff in and they could die," Cusatus said.
She called police and they rushed to the scene. They found the Baker family in the home filled with smoke. It was blamed on a furnace malfunction.
Lester Baker is glad Cusatus got involved. "I mean when I went downstairs I could hardly see. I had a lung transplant in 2004 and I only have one lung ," Baker said.
Smoke alarms woke the Bakers up, but police said they could have been overcome with the smoke. Lester Baker agrees.
"It's a great thing that we had the detectors in the house because if we didn't we probably wouldn't have woke up," Baker added.
Jack Martini is Cusatus' boss. He said he is proud of his employee.
"She's driving bus for 22 years and takes care of her kids like their her own kids so when she saw something like this, that's what I would expect out of Kathy," Martini said.
Some said thanks to that good Samaritan and smoke alarms the Baker family is alive and well.