Police Officer Rescues Man From Burning Building
LAKE BLUFF, Ill. (STMW) - A north suburban police officer rescued a man from a burning home early Sunday in Lake Bluff.
The officer was on patrol when he smelled smoke about 4 a.m. and saw flames coming out the windows of a home at 11 E. Woodland Rd., Lake Bluff police officer David Thomas said.
The 11-year veteran immediately notified dispatch and went to see if he could get inside the house, Thomas said. He was unable to open the front door, but used a battering ram to force entry into the back of the home, where he found a resident lying on the ground with a phone nearby.
The officer grabbed the resident, a man in his late 40s, by his legs and pulled him into the yard, Thomas said. Paramedics took the man with non-life-threatening injuries to Lake Forest Hospital, where he remained in "stable" condition in the intensive care unit Sunday afternoon.
The officer was not injured.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze in the oblong home, which used to be two apartments separated by a wall that was knocked out, Thomas said. The home was a complete loss.
Nobody else was injured and a dog inside the home managed to escape, Thomas said.
The Lake Bluff Fire Department was not immediately available for comment Sunday afternoon.
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