One man saved Grace, a 20-year-old cockatoo.
SAN ANTONIO — Some rugby players at the Wheatley Sports Complex on the east side jumped into action Saturday afternoon when thick black smoke started enveloping the playing fields.
Pedro Berdecia said, “All I saw was the black smoke and I started running over here.”
What he found at the corner of Morningview and Bookertee was a duplex on fire, with flames shooting from the attic area of one unit.
When Berdecia saw a man with a fire extinguisher struggling to breathe, he scooped the man up and ran a block to deliver him to paramedics.
“He just needed some oxygen from EMS, so I just carried him over there. He could barely walk so I just carried him over there,” Berdecia said.
At the same time, Debbie Cloyd, who lives in the portion of the duplex that wasn’t burning, was frantically trying to save her pets.
Police and firefighters said they had to keep the woman from going back into the burning building, as she screamed for them to help.
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Cloyd said she’s grateful people she didn’t even know pitched in to help.
“People just came in and started taking my animals out for me,” Cloyd said. While speaking fondly of Grace, her 20-year-old cockatoo, Cloyd said “Some big guy carried her cage outside.”
Neighbors said Cloyd is well-known in the area for feeding cats and trying her best to take care of strays.
Of the effort to save the animals from the flames, Cloyd said, “People have been very helpful!”
A fire department spokesman said it only took about ten minutes to bring the fire under control.
The fire incident commander said there was one man at home asleep when the fire broke out and he managed to get out safely on his own.
As for a cause, fire investigators are looking into it.