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Fire Victim Leaps from Third Floor To Escape Flames

STROUDSBURG — A teenager jumped from a burning home in Stroudsburg and it was a passerby who helped get her out alive. She jumped from a third-floor attic...
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STROUDSBURG -- A teenager jumped from a burning home in Stroudsburg and it was a passerby who helped get her out alive.

She jumped from a third-floor attic to escape from a fire inside her home.

A man from Stroudsburg was walking home from the grocery store after 12:30 p.m. when he saw the fire on the corner of Main and 2nd Street.

Thanks to his help, a 16-year-old girl was able to jump to safety from that burning home.

Workers across the street at an auto shop say the flames seemed to appear almost instantly.

"Everybody was like '911, call 911,' so we came out just to look and there was some smoke coming out from the top of the roof there and was like, 'oh, there's a fire,'" Aaron Thomas recalled.

Five children and their mother lived in the house and when the fire first started, a16-year-old girl was trapped on the third floor, yelling for help.

Glenn Thomas was just walking back from the grocery store and couldn't help but react, yelling to the teen to jump.

"'I got you.' I went under and I put my hands out and she said 'alright' and she let herself go and I grabbed her," said Thomas.

A home care assistant in the house at the time says she tried to help from inside but the fire took off too fast.

"I couldn't go up the stairs. All the walls were on fire so I came down and that's when she had jumped and the guy caught her," said Zuijea Rivera.

The teen was taken to Pocono Medical Center immediately after to be treated for her injuries but the man who helped rescue her says she seemed to be doing OK, considering the circumstances.

"I guess she cut her arms from, I guess, the glass. And the smoke, she was choking on smoke, but I guess other than that she was alright. She asked for her phone afterwards."

Now this family says Thomas is a hero.

He's honored, but humble.

"I wouldn't say I was that. I was just going by to get groceries. Who wouldn't have done that? I would have done that, you know? I wasn't going to sit there and watch that happen."

Fire officials say this fire is under investigation.

The owner of the home says inspectors had just taken a look at the place about a week ago and said everything checked out.

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