'You just kind of do it:' Neighbor rushes to save woman trapped inside house fire

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — A man who rushed to save a woman trapped inside a raging house fire is being called a hero by his neighbors.

Carlos Goncalves was heading home around 4:30 p.m. Sunday when he saw his neighbors' house on Stillwood Drive in Newnan on fire.

When Goncalves saw his neighbors’ house going up in flames, he didn’t think about what to do. He just rushed over to help in any way he could.

He saw the father and son who live in the house standing in the front yard. They had gotten out safely, but a woman was trapped inside.

“We said, ‘Is there anybody else in the house? And he said his mom was there,” Goncalves told Channel 2's Tyisha Fernandes.

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Thick black smoke made it difficult to see anything in the house, so they kept calling out the woman's name. They finally heard her voice and ran toward the back of the house.

Goncalves broke the screen and used a ladder to help save her.

Goncalves said the woman was scared and couldn’t move, but he eventually got her over the railing and down the ladder.

"I'm just glad they had that ladder out there. It could’ve been worse," he said.

Goncalves didn’t get burned, but he inhaled a lot of smoke and spent the night at a nearby hospital.

Neighbors are calling him a hero.

“I think he’s really brave – but he’s lucky he didn’t get caught in the fire," Cassandra Colaianni said.

But Goncalves said he just did what he would want someone to do for his family.

“You don’t even think about it. You just kind of do it. It’s more just get everybody out of the house. It was kinda scary when he was calling for his mom and he couldn’t hear her.”

Neighbors told Fernandes that a lawnmower in the garage caught fire but fire officials said they are still investigating the cause.

One of the family’s dogs didn’t make it out of the fire, but they found their other dog alive.

Cox Media Group