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Navy sailor dares to set fire to a building to save a trapped woman
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Navy sailor dares to set fire to a building to save a trapped woman

A Navy sailor assigned to a nuclear submarine scaled the wall of a burning apartment building to rescue a trapped woman, an act caught on video by an onlooker.

The video shows Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Journey, a nuclear electronics technician assigned to the fast attack submarine USS Albany in Norfolk, climbing a narrow ledge outside an apartment while a woman calls for help from a window and into while smoke and Flames drew nearer. Journey pulled the woman and her son from the flames, scooping them into the arms of the crowd below.

Journey also helped evacuate two more people from a different window using a ladder before the apartment was engulfed in flames.

“I’ve always been the type of person to help out when I can,” Journey said. He credited Navy submarine training for making the difference. “We do accident response training aboard submarines. That helped me maintain a calm demeanor in a chaotic situation.”

Journey, who grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, had left work to pick up his wife from the airport on Tuesday when he passed the apartment complex about two blocks from his home.

“I pulled up and a young lady in the parking lot said her apartment was on fire. I called 911 and stayed on hold,” he said. Finally, he honked at a police officer, then joined a group gathered under a window. As strong winds fanned the fire from one unit to another in the complex, a woman appeared from the window.

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The woman was clearly too scared to jump, Journey said, and someone in the crowd told her she had a disabled son.

“I decided to do it myself because there wasn’t enough time,” he said.

With that, he started to climb, cheered on by the crowd. He grabbed the window, then pulled himself onto a single layer of brick that served as a sill.

“It was about 4 inches wide,” Journey said.

From the side of the window, he helped the woman down, lowering her to the ground, then helped her son escape.

The two alarm fire injured 2 and displaced 32 residents, according to local television station WAVY. The call was first reported to emergency services at 2:10 p.m

A video posted on the Facebook page Paige Vs Dip It shows Journey pulling the woman out despite flames and thick smoke pouring from nearby windows.

Albany is a Los Angeles-class attack, launched in 1987 and commissioned in 1990.

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