Woman Helps Rescue Elderly Veteran from Burning Camper: ‘I Had to Act’

A woman is thankful she was able to help save an elderly veteran when his camper caught fire last week in Walnut Cove, North Carolina.

Twenty-three-year-old Allie Richardson was visiting friends at Jim Booth’s Catfish Pond on Tuesday when the unthinkable happened, according to WXII.

Around 4:30 p.m., she and another man noticed the camper next door was on fire and the two rushed over and went inside.

“(I) opened the camper and it was like whoosh! — bunch of black smoke. Like, crazy,” Richardson recalled.

Black smoke and flames surrounded them as they searched for the man, named William, who lived inside. However, when they found him he was not moving.

Richardson removed his oxygen tubes and with the other man’s help, moved William off the bed.

“He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t save himself. I had [to] do everything I could to help him,” she said.

While the other man went to flag down the emergency medical team, Richardson helped William out of the camper.

“The man’s oxygen tank blew up. So I picked him up and I started carrying him down the steps and he couldn’t walk,” she explained.

“He did get burned pretty bad, but it could have been way, way, way worse. If me and that man weren’t standing here, I mean nobody was here,” Richardson noted.

Following the incident, she shared photos of the scene on her Facebook page:

Officials with the Walnut Cove Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department are still investigating the cause of the fire and where it started.

Richardson and William were later transported to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center to be treated for burn-related injuries. The two reunited during their time at the hospital.

“He was like, ‘Oh my God, thank you,'” Richardson told WXII, adding, “We had a moment. We cried. It was special.”

When she learned William is a veteran, Richardson, who is considering a career as an EMT, said, “That made it more special.”

Now, she is calling on the community to help William get back on his feet after losing all his possessions in the fire.