Boston firefighters save child, 2 adults from burning home in Dorchester

BOSTON - It was heavy smoke that woke the family in the middle of the night on Brookview Street in Dorchester. They had no place to go but out with their bedroom on the second floor and no way to make it downstairs.

The homeowner, who doesn't want to be identified, grabbed his wife and six-year-old son and made it to a bathroom window. "Pretty much I had to break the window open in the bathroom and carry my son out the window," he told WBZ-TV. "Then I'm pretty much choking at this point and jumped out the second-floor window on the ledge."

With his family on the roof of the porch he called 911, and it would take a few minutes for firefighters to realize they were in the back of the burning house. "They didn't know where we were we had to keep yelling. They didn't know we were in the back and trapped."

He didn't realize the intensity of the flames out front until he got outside, and as they waited they feared they wouldn't make it to safety. "It was really, really scary like do or die at that point."

But he says a firefighter was fast, getting the ladder to the family helping first his son, his wife, and then him.

Neighbor Michael Lopes says by then visibility was difficult. "As they were trying to get them down more and more smoke was rushing out, couldn't see them as they were trying to get them down," said Lopes.

The homeowner says they've lost everything from the home to their car but is grateful they made it out. "You lose everything, except your life."

The family is hospitalized with minor injuries including burns, he says, to his throat. Investigators are trying to determine how the fire started.