It was 2 a.m. on Thursday when Jacob Stewart said he heard the sound of shattering glass and screams.
He looked outside his window in Forest Park, Georgia, and saw flames coming out of his neighbor’s home, he told WXIA.
“The whole side of the house was on fire and fire coming out of the front door,” he said. “We see that woman out here screaming. I see a kid over talking about, help. We go over there, there's like two of them out and then he's shoving them out the window.”
Brandon Gamble, a father of five, was desperately trying to save his children, ages 6 to 13, according to WSB-TV2.
John Tumlin, another neighbor who saw Gamble’s heroic act, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Gamble was “handing the kids out the window” as an inferno raged around him. He managed to save his whole family.
“God bless him. He’s a hero,” said Tumlin, adding that one of Gamble’s children told him “my daddy's over there. You got to save him or he's going to die!”
Tumlin told the Journal-Constitution that he wanted to help, but the fire “was too hot.”
Tyesha Gamble, who also survived the fire, was “distraught” when she learned her husband wouldn’t make it out alive, Stewart told WSB-TV2.
“She was, like, ‘My husband!’,” Stewart said. “We tried to go over there but there was nothing we could do for him.”
Gamble, 30, died rescuing his family from the fire that is believed to have started in the living room of his house, which was not equipped with a fire alarm, Deputy Fire Chief Matt Jackson told WXIA.
All the children were taken to a local hospital for minor cuts, according to the Journal-Constitution, while Tyeisha was treated for smoke inhalation. The cause of the fire is unknown.
It took around 20 firefighters to battle the blaze, which could have resulted in even greater tragedy, Jackson said.
“A heroic man,” he told WXIA, “and very lucky children.”
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