CLARK COUNTY — Todd Wiseman first realized something was wrong when he heard his wife screaming.
“I looked out the windows, and saw the flames,” he said. “I just grabbed my coat, and took off running.”
Wiseman ran to his neighbor’s house on Gordon Road in Bethel Township, on fire, just after 10:30 Wednesday night. Upon arriving at the property, a few houses down, he found out his neighbor, John, was trapped inside.
Attempts to get the man out of the house were unsuccessful because of the smoke – “Just crazy,” Wiseman said.
Fortunately, as fire crews rushed to the scene, Clark County Sheriff’s Deputy Andrew Miller was closer, and arrived seconds later, with his body camera activated. He quickly learned someone was trapped.
“He never gave it a second thought. He opened up that door, all that smoke came out on him, but he continued right on into the house,” Sheriff Deb Burchett said Thursday.
Wiseman went in with Miller, and the two worked to pull the victim, on the floor in the front room, out of the house. Miller can be heard coughing and battling intense smoke in the body camera footage.
“It gave me the chills,” Burchett said of watching the video.
The two men were able to pull the man to safety in the front yard, where Miller helped the victim, with fire crews and a medic arriving shortly after to take the man to the hospital.
“I feel very fortunate that we were able to do something,” Wiseman said.
Burchett did not have an update on the victim’s condition Thursday, but said he did survive – something she’s proud to be able to say.
“I thoroughly believe if Deputy Miller hadn’t been there when he was, this would have been a fatal,” Burchett said.
As for Wiseman, he shrugged off any label of “hero.” He said he did what he needed to do.
“Honestly, I just thank God that he put me in a place to do what I did,” he said.