Woman rescues couple from house fire after losing her car to fire
TARENTUM, Pa. (KDKA) - A Natrona Heights woman is being hailed as a hero after she saved a couple from a house fire earlier this week. This blaze wasn't the only one she had to deal with, though.
Jennifer Colarossi said all she was looking to do was find a new route to do her job but ended up finding two people whose lives she needed to save.
If you would have told Colarossi in the space of a week she would lose her car and saved two people from dying, she would have told you otherwise.
"I don't think so. I don't think so, not me," Colarossi said.
But fate has a funny way of proving all of us wrong now and again. Let's start with her car.
"Just coming up Butner Hill, the car was smoking really bad."
And where there's smoke there's fire.
"There were flames under the hood."
A very bad break for a woman who delivers newspapers every morning.
It's not exactly the way anybody would want to start a week but within 24 hours, Colarossi would find herself dealing with another fire and, in this case, there was a lot more at stake than just a car.
At about 4:30 in the morning, Colarossi was delivering her papers in Tarentum when she smelled smoke. This time, it wasn't her car.
"It was one of those things where I couldn't believe my eyes for a second. Was this really happening?"
What Colarossi saw was a home on Grantham Street on fire. Wondering if anybody was home, Colarossi ran to the open front door. There was someone home.
"I was completely shocked when I heard the lady say, 'Help me! I had a stroke and I can't move!'"
Covering her face with her hoodie, Colarossi went into the smoke-filled home trying to find the person. She did, along with an older man.
"Yeah, the husband was standing there, I felt his hand, kind of ran my hand down his body down to her. I was trying to say sorry and just grabbed her out to the porch.
With police on the scene, Jennifer went back to work. But first.
"I got in my cry and just cried for just a second then went about my business," said Colarossi.
Colarossi said in the end, what she did was no big deal.
"Another human being is in trouble and needs help."
Colarossi is a woman of faith and said god put her in the right place at the right time.
As for the victims, the woman was taken to the hospital and may have had some kind of heart-related issue after the incident. The woman's husband was okay. For now, all Colarossi is concentrating on is getting another car.