Body camera footage caught the moment that a New Jersey police officer rushed into a burning apartment to rescue a trapped elderly man, the Evesham Police Department announced in a press release Monday.
Police said in the press release that around 4 p.m. on June 16 officer Kevin Long arrived at the scene before firefighters and rushed into the burning apartment “under extreme hazardous conditions” to save a trapped elderly man.
Video shows Long running toward the apartment saying, “I got smoky conditions! Smoky conditions!”
When the officer gets through the front door he can be heard yelling, “Hey! You alright? You alright?” (RELATED: ‘It’s Way Too Hot’: Video Shows Police Desperately Trying To Rescue 11-Year-Old From Raging Fire)
WATCH: Dramatic body camera footage shows New Jersey officer save man from house fire. #NewJersey #housefire
Follow the TJNEWS WHATSAPP GROUP 🔗 https://t.co/o8oyW8AOYL… TELEGRAM 🔗 https://t.co/N0YtaM89Te pic.twitter.com/JIulPEQAkW— The Jewish Voice (@TJVNEWS) June 25, 2024
The officer is able to get a woman out of the apartment who can be heard saying, “My husband!”
Officer Long says, “I can’t see anything…I can’t get in there. The smoke’s too bad” before he is able to locate the woman’s elderly husband. The man is sitting in a chair and tells Long that he “can’t walk.”
Long then frantically begins to clear a path to the man, removing a wheelchair from the home and stopping the wife from reentering the burning apartment. He then rushes back in and drags the elderly man, who is still sitting in the chair, to safety.
Evesham Police Chief Walt Miller told FOX29 that officer Long “was confronted with a large amount of smoke and couldn’t see what was going on…but fortunately he was able to make contact with the gentleman and remove him from the residence.”
Chief Miller added that Long kept the man’s wife from reentering the apartment.
“If he’s not there as quickly as he is, that wife is in the house with him and quickly they would both have succumbed to the smoke. So he saved two lives that day,” the Chief told FOX29.
The couple was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and Long was treated for smoke inhalation and released, the press release stated.
Evesham firefighters arrived within six minutes and were able to contain the fire to the kitchen, according to the press release.
Police said the fire was caused by unattended cooking in the kitchen, FOX29 reported.
