APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – One Fox Valley woman is crediting a retired firefighter for saving her life.
The woman was in one of two duplexes in Appleton’s north side, where a fire broke out last week.
“Wherever he came from is like a miracle to me!” Virginia Muyano said.
It was a typical Tuesday morning for Muyano at the duplex her daughter, granddaughters and their two dogs live in.
In a matter of minutes, that would quickly change.
A blaze was roaring in the garage of the neighboring duplex, likely to spread over to the duplex she was in. But an unlikely hero came to the rescue, after seeing the smoke from the highway.
“I was looking through the house, because I thought, ‘What is that smell?’ And I couldn’t find nothing,” Muyano explained. “That’s when the guy came and just opened the door and said, ‘You gotta get out now!’”
The man not only got Muyano and one of the dogs out safely, he risked his own life to go back for the other.
“I was like, ‘Joey! I gotta go back in and get Joey!’ And he said, ‘No, no, I’ll go get him,’” said Muyano. “He went back in and got him, and came out with him.”
It’s rare for someone to see smoke from the highway and respond, to begin with, but what’s even more rare is that person being a retired firefighter, knowing just what to do.
“It’s just in our blood,” Appleton Fire Department Battalion Chief Shannon Young said. “Just because we’re not wearing the uniform, whether we’re retired or we’re on our day off, you know, we never stop.”
Young says they don’t know who this Good Samaritan retired firefighter is, but confirms he wasn’t one of theirs.
“I don’t have a name; I don’t have any further details, and I looked in the report, and I don’t have names recorded, other than the owner and the occupants of the structure,” Young said.
Virginia Muyano says she has an idea of where this heroic person could’ve come from.
“Was he my guardian angel, or did God send him to help us?” she said.
Muyano will forever be grateful to this selfless stranger and hopes one day to be able to put a name to the face and tell him again herself.
“If it wasn’t for him, I might not be here,” said Muyano.
Five adults and six children, along with three pets, were forced from the other duplex.
One pet was lost in the fire.
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