A broken arm is nothing to Altavious Powell, who used his cast as the perfect tool to enter his elderly neighbor’s house in order to save the older woman from a house fire.
According to WSVN, Powell is now being hailed as a hero after pulling 93-year-old Maria Cabral out of the burning home.
The fire started on Monday night when the flame from a candle that Cabral lit caught on the wall.
“She cannot rebuild. She’s 93 years old, she cannot rebuild,” her son Fernando Cabral told the news station of the house that had charred walls and a ripped-open roof. “She don’t have no insurance. Life [is] not gonna be easy.”
Cabral was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, but her family said she will be fine.
Powell said that the smell of smoke alarmed him, prompting him to run to his neighbor’s aid.
He used a plastic chair and even the cast on his injured arm to break through a window to get her out.
“I just kept breaking the window until I broke it all out,” Powell said. “I know once I get the water hose, I’ll be able to put the fire out.”
“I said, ‘Mommy, mommy, where you at?’ And she said, ‘I’m right here,’” he said. “She was right here like standing on the wall, so I just grabbed her with one arm. She looked up at me, she just said, ‘Thank you.’”
Powell was also treated for smoke inhalation at the scene of the fire.
“I’m just glad I was able to do it and I got it over with, and everybody is safe now,” he said.
