Woman saved by heroic neighbor

Sonya Padgett

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 11:12 a.m.

Gregory Schuler, 56, thought he was just being a good neighbor Wednesday when he backed his truck into the driveway of a house on Garden Grove Avenue, tied a nylon rope to the security door and pulled it open, rescuing a trapped woman from her flame-engulfed home.

But Clark County Fire department spokesman Steve La-Sky said Schuler's actions were heroic.

"He definitely did a great deed. The fire crews that were there insisted that he saved the woman's life," La-Sky said. The woman, whose name was not released, wasn't injured and recovered at a neighbor's home, La-Sky said.

Six units responded to the fire at 5:30 a.m., which was caused by carelessly discarded smoking materials, La-Sky said.

Security bars on the doors and windows, designed to keep people out, had the owner of the home trapped inside as the fire quickly spread.

The fire department's heavy rescue team had been called, but it wasn't needed because Schuler had done the job already, La-Sky said.

Schuler, a truck driver for Wells Cargo Construction, was on his way to work Wednesday morning when he saw the plumes of smoke in his neighborhood near Rainbow Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

"I was pulling out of my cul-de-sac and I could see lots of thick, black smoke. A couple of kids going to school ran over and said a woman was trapped inside her house," Schuler said.

That's when he decided to do something. After making sure 911 had been called, Schuler backed his 1973 Chevrolet truck up to the iron security gate and saw the woman crouched by the door, unable to get out. He double-tied an orange and black nylon rope to the bumper and her door and pulled forward. The bars bent just enough to allow the woman to escape.

Schuler said he wasn't afraid or nervous as he worked in the thick smoke.

"In times of emergency you just do what you have to do. Anybody would do what (I did)," he said. "Thank God I had a sturdy rope."