It was a neighborhood effort to pull several young adults to safety when a pre-dawn house fire broke out Thanksgiving morning in North Middletown.
The fire occurred just before 6 a.m. in a home on the 100 block of Ocean Avenue. Everyone inside the home was fast asleep, said neighbors.
Arthur Kaylor said as soon as he and another man saw the flames, they kicked the door down and screamed into the smoke-filled home. "I was screaming, 'Anyone in the house?!'" he said. "I found (one person in his mid-20s) passed out in the living room 10 feet from heavy flames and smoke. We helped pull him to safety as a third man held the door. It was a combined effort."
"It was about 5:45 a.m. We were fast asleep," said Dawn Mauceri, who lives in the home right next door.