Jnobaptist pulls elderly man out of raging inferno

“If it was not for Larry, I don’t know what would have happened to me.”  So says Bernard Small, as he painfully recalled his brush with death minutes earlier as a midmorning blaze completely gutted his home on Hanover Street.

Small, who could not say what caused the fire, reported that he was at home alone listening to radio when he felt the searing heat burning against his skin.  “ I tried to get out of the way,” Small said, “but I could not because there was too much smoke.”  
 

As the building burned out of control threatening to bury Small in a fire grave, Larry JnoBaptiste, an employee of Wayne Feed Center and friend of Small rush to his aid.  “When I got to the door,” Larry said, I called out “Small, Small?”  He then answered back “Larry help me!  Help me please!”
 

Larry’s initial instinct was to fill a bucket with water to douse the flames.  The water however was running too slow while the small wooden house was quickly disappearing underneath cloaks of thick black smoke and lapping tongues of fire.  By the time Larry made his way to the front door, Small was almost completely engulfed by the raging fire.  “ I just had to run inside and grab him, he said.  “Now the fire was flaring up at us.  I could walk; I could not run.  I just had to grab him and dive outside with him.”
 

Asked how it felt to have actually saved the life of his friend, Larry responded, “I guess it feels great but still I had to do something to help him out.  I had to do it; I had no choice.”  While Larry escaped unscathed, Small sustained third degree burns to his back, arms and face.
 

While Small lost his home to the fire and was unable to salvage anything – not even the clothes on his back – he feels extremely lucky and will forever be grateful to his friend for saving his life