“There’s people who needed help and we were there ready to help,” Matt Wuestefeld said while recounting the harrowing incident
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Credit: greedale police department
NEED TO KNOW
- Matt and Erin Wuestefeld saved a mother and her baby from a house fire while returning home from an errand on March 15
- The Indiana couple had “smelled smoke” during the drive before seeing the “flames” coming out of the Greendale home
- The mother and her baby were unharmed, but their home and belongings were destroyed in the fire, according to WKRC
A husband and wife in Indiana saved a mother and her baby from a house fire while out running a routine errand.
Matt and Erin Wuestefeld of Greendale were driving back from a Lowe’s store on March 15 when they both noticed something seemed off, according to local news outlet WKRC.
"We both smelled smoke,” Matt said. “We looked over to the left and saw some flames coming out below the window.”
He said that he turned the car around, pulled it into park and ran toward the white, two-story home.
Credit: greedale police department
"[I] ran up to the door, knocked on the door. There was a young lady inside … [She] had a baby less than a year old. Told her her house was on fire," Matt said.
He helped the woman and her baby out of the house — but then decided there was more he could do.
“I ran back in the house, grabbed her keys, her purse, her baby carrier and a bottle, and we got the car moved, looked for the two fire hydrants, [made] sure that they were available for the fire department and waited for them to show up," Matt explained.
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"There's people who needed help and we were there ready to help," he added.
Matt went on to say that things might have turned out differently had he and Erin not been driving by the home at exactly the right time.
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According to WKRC, the woman, who has not been named publicly, thanked Matt and Erin, explaining that she had woken up from a nap mere seconds before Matt knocked on the door.
"If we were probably 10 minutes earlier, we'd be not even smelling or [seeing] it, but there [was] just the right time to see the smoke and see the flames coming out underneath the window," he said.
While the woman and her baby are safe, they lost everything in the fire, according to WKRC.
The Greendale Police Department (GPD) called the incident an "extremely dangerous situation" in a statement on Facebook.
It is not currently known what caused the fire.
