A 67-year-old father is being praised as a hero after jumping from the second floor of a burning home to save his family. He didn’t hesitate in the moment.
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“To me, it’s the family. We are alive — that’s it,” Otoniel Gomez told NBC affiliate KNBC. “The other thing, it’s just material.”
The fire broke out on the first floor of the California home in the middle of the night. Capt. Sean Doran of the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA) explained what happened. He said Gomez jumped from their bedroom window after his wife smelled smoke and the blaze had spread to outside their door.
Father Saves Family From Burning Home
He then grabbed a ladder, helping his wife and 11-year-old son to escape.
“You can hear the dad on top of the ladder, pounding on that window, trying to get the attention of his 11-year-old, who was still fast asleep,” Doran told KTLA. “He says, ‘Open the window … We’re going to have to jump. We’re going to get you out of here,’ calm but urgent, over and over again.”
Gomez then used the ladder to help his adult son and also an elderly woman escape their burning home as well. Thanks to his quick actions, all of the family had managed to escape the home. Even the Chihuahua survived the blaze.
“Five people are alive today thanks to the heroic actions of a 67-year-old man at his home on South Linda Way,” OCFA captioned a video shared on social media.
The family praised Gomez for saving them from the burning home. His daughter called him a hero.
She said, “He’s just a solid guy, you know? Growing up, I never saw him panic. I never saw him stressed out… When things would go wrong, there was always a positive attitude,” one daughter told the outlet. “As a child, I never felt uncertain or scared because of him.”
Daisy Valdivia, one of Gomez’s kids, has launched a GoFundMe to help the family now that they’ve lost everything in the fire.
“My dad, Otoniel, is facing one of the most difficult times of his life,” she wrote. “He is currently homeless, trying to care for his young child who is still in elementary school.”