DUNDALK, Md. — Images captured just after midnight on Tuesday morning showed a virtual inferno that jumped from a shed to three rowhomes on Church Road in Dundalk fueled by steady winds.
“It was fully-involved,” said Tom Denk, who lives across the road, “and the first thing we said, ‘Where is Jan? Where is this one? Where is that one?’ We couldn’t find them.”
Dozens of firefighters arrived on the scene, but in the heat of the moment, it was two total strangers, neighbors, who had to figure out how to save a life.
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One of them, Tony Copper, knew that a pair of 90-year-old twin sisters lived in the end unit, and firefighters had only made it out with one of them from a lower floor.
“I’m telling the fire department that I know that everyone is not out of these houses, because I know who lives in each one,” Copper said.
Copper and another neighbor knew time had almost run out to try to reach the other one, and they didn’t have a ladder.
“I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to do. Just climb on my shoulders. We’ll get her out to the roof, and if we can get her out to the roof, she’ll be okay,’" Copper said, “By the time we get her on the roof, the room explodes like a backdraft.”
Hours later, when Copper saw a picture captured of the rescue, he was lost for words.
“I’m like, ‘Whoa. What the hell were you thinking?’ said Copper, ‘But at the same time, these are my friends. We are neighbors here and we do the neighborly thing. I hope people in America know that we still do neighborly things. We associate with each other. We know each other. They’re 90-year-old twins.”
