Midlothian woman helps neighbors out of burning home
BY JOSEPH P. MEIER Sun-Times Media May 25, 2012 3:36PM
As her father Eugene Bose is loaded into an ambulance Lisa Hotwagner gathers herself while talking to firefighters about what happened in an early morning fire at her house in the 3700 block of 153rd Street in Midlothian, Illinois, Friday, May 25, 2012. Neighbor Belinda Dailey (left) saw smoke coming from the building and broke windows and doors in order to get Eugene Bose and his grandson Dominic Hotwagner, 8, out of the house. | Joseph P. Meier~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: July 3, 2012 10:25AM
Belinda Dailey apparently is a cut above your average neighbor.
So said the bloodstained pants she wore — and the actions she took — after she spotted smoke Friday morning coming from a home across the street in her Midlothian neighborhood.
Dailey sprang into action. She said she ran barefoot across the street, pounded on the door before forcing it open, and then screamed into the house, where smoke and flames filled the kitchen.
“Please come out. You’re going to burn,” she yelled.
A fire had broken out in the home in the 3700 block of 153rd Street about 8:30 a.m. Resident Lisa Hotwagner had taken one of her kids to school, but 8-year-old Dominic was asleep downstairs, and his grandfather, Eugene Bose, also was in the home.
Bose heard Dailey’s voice and made his way out of the house. Then Hotwagner returned from school and saw the smoke billowing from her home. After a panic-filled moment, she and Dailey realized Dominic still was in the house. They ran to a basement window, broke the glass, reached in and helped pull him out.
All three suffered cuts from the broken glass.
A Midlothian fire official declined to provide details about the fire but said it was under investigation.
The detail that mattered to Dailey was that smoke was visible when she looked across the street.
“It paid to be nosey this morning,” she said.
Contributing: Mike Deacon and Susan DeMar Lafferty
