A woman in California is recovering in the hospital after a stranger and two deputies saved her from her burning home.
One of her heroes, Nas Mohamed, was working as an Uber Eats driver when he rushed to her rescue at her home in Vista, a city in San Diego County. Early morning drives for Mohamed are normally peaceful, but in the early hours on Friday, he smelled smoke and followed his nose to the fire.
“Soon as I arrived there, I started knocking on the door, knocking on the side,” Mohamed told NBC 7. “And then I looked behind me. I saw a man, and he told me, ‘I live here, I live here.’ I said, ‘Is there anyone inside of the home?’ He said, ‘Yeah, my wife’s inside and the two cats.’ ”
Nas said he heard the man’s wife yelling inside the mobile home.
“She was, like, literally next to the fire,” Mohamed said. “The fire was surrounding her. And I went inside. I started looking for her, and I kept saying, ‘Talk to me! Talk to me!’ That was the worst part, because I was breathing, you know, while I’m talking to her.”
Mohamed said he eventually found her and tried to pull her to safety. But the women let go of his hands after she yelled out that her cats were still trapped.
“And that was a nightmare because I wasn’t able to find the window because of the smoke and my phone light wasn’t enough,” he said.
First responders arrived just in time to find them and help Mohamed lift her out the window and even save one of her cats.
Without protective gear, Mohamed suffered injuries of his own. Watching video on Friday afternoon of a sheriff’s deputy pulling him to safety and then him gently placing him on the ground, gasping for air, he said the only feeling that surpassed his pain was his relief at hearing the woman’s voice.
“The first thing, I start hearing her talking, and I felt like, ‘She’s OK,’” Mohamed said. “At the same time, you know, my eyes burn from the smoke, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I felt that it was a relief, you know, more than a pain. I know, like, I’m going to be fine soon.”
Mohamed said the woman expressed her gratitude and wanted to know his name.
“She’s like, ‘What is your name? What is your name?’” Mohamed said. “Three, four times, you know, and I can’t breathe. I can’t talk. Every time I talk, I started having some coughing and black things coming out of my mouth. So finally I told her my name, and she hold my hand, and she’s like, ‘You saved me. You saved my life.’ I told her, ‘God saved us.’ ”
Mohamed has no medical background that trained him for that moment.
“As a man, you hear a woman — an old woman — screaming, burning, you know?” Mohamed said. “I can’t stay outside.”
First responders airlifted the woman to the hospital but have yet to provide an update on her condition. Mohamed spent the night in the hospital, too, recovering from burns and smoke inhalation.
Looking back on the morning he had, he said he was grateful to have been in the right place at the right time to save a life.
“You don’t need to hurt yourself or sacrifice yourself if you think it’s a losing game, but go for it if you’re going to help someone, a person, someone with blood like you, just go for it,” Mohamed said. “Why not break a window or break a door to help people?”
Mohamed, who is an interior painter and makes Uber Eats deliveries on the side, spoke with NBC 7 on Friday after being awake for 25 hours. When asked his plans for the rest of the day, he said he would nap, then take the rest of the day off.
San Diego Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Carpenter said the fire’s cause is still under investigation but he suspects the woman may have forgotten food on the stove. He said that with the holidays and plenty of cooking coming up, it’s especially important to stay alert.
The sheriff’s department released a statement commending Mohamed as well as their deputies’ roles in the rescue.
“I am incredibly proud of each deputy who responded to the call,” Carpenter is quoted as saying in the statement. “I also want to extend my deepest gratitude to the courageous community member who risked his safety to help a stranger. His bravery and quick response played an essential role in saving a life.”