Boston man hailed a hero for rescuing blind woman from apartment fire
An early morning fire at an apartment building on Tremont Street in Roxbury could have had a tragic outcome if not for a quick-thinking neighbor being called a hero. It started in a second-floor apartment where 79-year-old Geneva Fuller woke to smell smoke.
"She's blind, so she really didn't know what was going on. She had to go by her senses of hearing and smelling," said her son Keith Patterson.
Fuller activated her Life Alert which brought crews to the scene who then saw the smoke and flames.
Neighbor runs back upstairs
By then neighbor Socrate Joseph knew his blind neighbor might be trapped. "I ran back upstairs on the third floor, grabbed my phone so I could use it as a flashlight. Then I went back downstairs, looked for her. I grabbed her hand, and she was pulling back," said Joseph.
The frightened woman was combative in the face of danger, but Socrate Joseph says he had to take matters into his own hands.
"In that moment I just yanked her, put her over my shoulders. So I was climbing down the steps with her," Joseph said. "That's when one of the firefighters came and then they took her from me."
"A hero among us"
Fuller was rescued out a side door to waiting EMS crews. Joseph's intuition is something Keith Patterson says he'll be ever grateful for. "He was literally a hero among us," Patterson said. "I would say if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would be having this conversation with you, nor would my mom be alive. I was just forever grateful, forever indebt to him."
Fuller is a fixture in the Roxbury neighborhood having lived there for nearly 40 years. The building manager says he is also grateful for his tenant. "Ready to risk his own life to save another, to me that means the world," said Victor Luna.
The units now boarded up are a total loss leaving Socrate Joseph homeless for now, but knowing everyone made it out. "If I did not, it would have been on my conscience. I don't know her, but it was the right thing to do," Joseph said.
Geneva Fuller suffered smoke inhalation and will be monitored at the hospital for the next 24 hours. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
