Good Samaritans pull man from burning home in Gastonia

GASTONIA, N.C. — A Gastonia man is recovering in a hospital after three people rescued him from his burning house Monday morning.

Two brothers told Channel 9 they were driving by the home, on Lowell-Bethesda Road, when they saw flames shooting out from it around 9 a.m.

They stopped and, along with a neighbor, rushed inside and helped the homeowner get out.

“Saving whoever was in there, I wasn't worried about myself,” said Robert Coley. “I'm in good health, so I was just worried about getting whoever was in there out of it because there was just black smoke rolling out everywhere.”

The brothers and a neighbor opened the unlocked front door, and smoke billowed out.

They heard the homeowner yelling for help.

"He wouldn't have made it much longer if we wouldn't have got him out when we did," Robert Coley said.

A Charlotte firefighter who lives on the same street came down to help until the Fire Department arrived.

"The house was full of smoke," New Hope Road Volunteer Fire Department Chief Matthew Young said. "Fire was coming out of the window. He was very fortunate to have made it out."
 
The homeowner, George Clouse, 67, was airlifted to the Wake Forest Baptist Burn Center after suffering smoke inhalation.

Clouse's estranged wife said he lives at the home alone.
 
Brenda Clouse met the Coley brothers.

"I thanked them for getting him out of the house," she said.
 
George Clouse's condition has not been released, and the fire is under investigation.

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