A Navy Sailor is chalking it up to his fire-fighting training on Navy ships which led to him to save an elderly woman and her home last month in Auckland
Leading Combat Systems Specialist Matt Hodgkinson, 27, had returned home to change after work when he noticed thick clouds of smoke billowing out from his neighbour's property in Beach Haven.
LCSS Hodgkinson motioned to another neighbour nearby to call 111 while he headed toward the house in search of anyone inside.
“I heard someone inside, and an elderly woman was coming out, standing in the smoke, breathing it in, so she was getting disorientated and I managed to get her out. She kept wanting to return to the house, but the neighbour looked after her.”
He then jumped over the gate at the back of the property, grabbing the garden hose to try and put out the flames on the roof.
It was likely to have been caused by a gas stove fire which quickly climbed the kitchen walls and on to the ceiling.
“I could see through the hole that the fire was going up into the roof, and at that point, another neighbour brought over their dry powder fire extinguisher, so I used that on the fire inside the house.”
LCSS Hodgkinson, who joined the Navy in 2011, was soon taken over by emergency services who put out the fire while the woman was transported to hospital with a broken wrist.
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