{"id":243927,"date":"2019-09-11T12:37:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T02:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=243927"},"modified":"2020-09-20T12:17:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T02:17:57","slug":"murgon-hero-saves-family-from-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2019\/09\/11\/murgon-hero-saves-family-from-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Murgon Hero Saves Family From Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Murgon QAS Officer-in-Charge Michael Formica (Photo: Murgon LAC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

September 11, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

An off-duty Murgon ambulance paramedic is being hailed a hero after saving two people and their pets from a house fire in Toowoomba on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Officer-in-charge of Murgon QAS, Michael Formica, was visiting family in Toowoomba when he noticed a house on fire in Harristown.<\/p>\n

“I noticed the smoke pretty well straight away,” he said.<\/p>\n

“There were a couple of people on scene when I walked across there. I heard some commotion from the back.<\/p>\n

“The house was engulfed in flames.<\/p>\n

“I walked around the back. There was a gentleman hosing through the security door.”<\/p>\n

Michael said there was screaming coming from inside the building.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He entered the house through the back door and found the mother inside the house.<\/p>\n

“I pulled her back out of the smoke. She was covered in soot from head to toe and screaming,” he said.<\/p>\n

Michael took her outside and asked her if there was anyone else inside.<\/p>\n

The frantic mother said her eight-year-old daughter was still in the burning building.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Michael then re-entered the house, which was full of thick, black smoke.<\/p>\n

“From the hose, the floor was full of water. So I got down in the water and I crawled in the direction of the loungeroom but I couldn’t get past the heat and the smoke and I couldn’t see.”<\/p>\n

Michael then retreated back to the laundry area and turned on the flashlight on his phone.<\/p>\n

He then crawled back inside.<\/p>\n

“I made it further back into the loungeroom but because of the thickness of the smoke, the light was just bouncing back and I couldn’t see.”<\/p>\n

He then decided to get out of the house and try to find a way to smash the windows to let some of the smoke out.<\/p>\n

“I did that and then I re-entered the house, crawled right into the loungeroom where the flames were.<\/p>\n

“I did a scan of the floor and I couldn’t see any persons on the floor.<\/p>\n

“I crawled back through to the other end of the house and opened a door.<\/p>\n

“The bedroom was full of smoke. I entered and checked but couldn’t find any persons in there.<\/p>\n

“I had to remove myself because I couldn’t breathe.<\/p>\n

“I took a few more breaths and went back in and heard a noise in a cupboard.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I crawled back in, opened the cupboard and there was a dog in the cupboard.<\/p>\n

“I removed the dog and went outside.<\/p>\n

“I made my way in (again) but I couldn’t unlock that bedroom door.<\/p>\n

“I heard another noise in the first bedroom and I went in there to find another puppy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I took the puppy out and handed the pup to the mother.<\/p>\n

“I turned around and saw the girl in the garage. She couldn’t get up.<\/p>\n

“I helped her up.”<\/p>\n

He then took the mother and girl around the front of the house to safety and contacted QAS for back-up.<\/p>\n

“When the firies arrived I got their oxygen and put the oxygen on mum and then the ambulance arrived and they headed to hospital,” he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once the handover was done, it was Michael’s turn to get treated.<\/p>\n

“The mother was quite upset, as you could imagine. She had just lost most of her possessions,” Michael said.<\/p>\n

She also thought her daughter had been hurt, but fortunately she was not injured.<\/p>\n

The mother suffered smoke inhalation.<\/p>\n

“I had smoke inhalation and a small burn on my left hand.”<\/p>\n

The modest hero said he was “just glad he could do something”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An off-duty Murgon ambulance paramedic is being hailed a hero after saving two people and their pets from a house fire in Toowoomba on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":277280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,24],"tags":[90,28,1132],"yoast_head":"\nMurgon Hero Saves Family From Fire - southburnett.com.au<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An off-duty Murgon ambulance paramedic is being hailed a hero after saving two people and their pets from a house fire in Toowoomba on Tuesday afternoon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2019\/09\/11\/murgon-hero-saves-family-from-fire\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Murgon Hero Saves Family From Fire - 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