Thanks to an alert neighbor, fire crews were able to rescue a man from inside a burning apartment unit in La Mesa Tuesday evening.
Heartland Fire Department crews were called to the complex on the 7300 block of La Mesita Place at around 6:45 p.m., according to Fire Captain Sonny Saghera.
Darren Robinson, who lives in the unit directly above where the fire sparked, said he was eating dinner when he heard a knocking sound. He thought that one of his neighbors might have been hanging a picture until he smelled the scent of smoke.
Soon after smelling it, he saw smoke in his unit. He went outside to investigate and saw the fire in the unit below and called 911.
Robinson, a veteran, said if it weren't for his experience with a military fire department, his bravery may have made things worse for his neighbor below.
"I was going to kick the door in but I had done a little bit of firefighting in my lifetime and one of the things I learned is that you can't open the door right away," Robinson said.
While he waited for fire crews to arrive, Robinson knocked on other units in the building to evacuate residents.
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"It was natural for me to try and run to get people out and I didn't think about anything else," Robinson said.
Robinson said the man who firefighters rescued was an older man with mobility issues. He said his wife takes care of him in their home and that she wasn't there when the fire sparked.
According to Saghera, the fire was burning in the front living room of the unit. The man was pulled out of a back room and taken to UCSD Medical Center with minor injuries.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, according to Saghera.
No other information was available.
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