Two Nebraska State Patrol employees are recounting their heroic actions as they went into a burning house to save a man. The fire broke out near 17th and Nebraska Parkway around 3:30 a.m. Capitol Security Officer Steve Creps was on patrol in the area when he saw smoke coming from a neighborhood.
Creps says when he arrived at the house he saw smoke coming from the soffits and tried to make contact with anyone inside. He then called Trooper Benjamin Nguyen, who was in the area for assistance. “When I got there, smoke was pouring out of the house everywhere it possibly could,” Nguyen says. “There was maybe only a foot and a half of clear air underneath where you could see. We couldn’t breathe, we couldn’t hardly see anything so we were crawling on the ground trying to maneuver through the house.”
Both men say they don’t consider themselves heroes despite putting their lives in danger to save the man. “I just feel like anybody would do this is if they saw what we saw,” Nguyen says. “It was late at night, there was nobody awake. I would hope that other people would do the same thing when they see a fire.”
LFR Public Information Officer MJ Lierman says the fire was caused by unattended cooking and it appeared the man tried to put the fire out himself. There were no working smoke detectors in the house and damage is estimated at $175,000.
(Photo: Nebraska State Patrol )