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Local husband, wife save lives at separate locations on Christmas Eve

CLEVELAND COUNTY, N.C. — The Travis family had a Christmas Eve to remember.

A Cleveland County husband and wife, driving to meet each other, came across two separate, dangerous situations on Sunday.

The wife helped one family escape from a house fire, while the husband saved a baby's life on the side of the road.

It was a case of them being in the right place at the right time, the couple told Channel 9.

Crystal Travis and her daughter were driving when they saw flames erupting through the roof of a home. They jumped out to help the family with small children to safety.

"I couldn't really tell at first and then I realized this house is on fire,” Crystal Travis said. “Then, all of the sudden, the propane tank on the porch explodes. It shakes the ground, and you can just feel it. There's smoke everywhere. It's hard to breathe."

The family told Channel 9 they are OK, and they managed to save some of their Christmas gifts from inside the home.

"It was just all really fast, really chaotic,” Crystal Travis said. “Just really glad they were able to make it out."

While Crystal Travis and her daughter helped one family, she didn’t know that her husband was helping another family 20 miles away.

Roger Travis was driving near Hickory Mall when he says he saw people trying to perform CPR on a baby.

That's when he used his EMT skills to revive the child.

"It looked like there was a traffic accident in the front of the mall,” Roger Travis said. "We did get a pulse. The child was crying."

Some people may call it a coincidence, but the Travises consider it to be a Christmas miracle.

"We were like, ‘What are the odds? This is the craziest day ever,'” Crystal Travis said.

"God put us at the right moment, at the right time, for the people that needed us the most,” Roger Travis said.

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