Officers save two children from fire

Jen Lawson

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004 | 8:59 a.m.

Metro Police Officer Brian Iulo was patrolling a condominium complex in southwest Las Vegas on Thursday, keeping an eye out for stolen cars, when he spotted something he didn't expect -- smoke pouring from an upstairs window of one of the units.

Iulo, along with Officers Jason Henson and Kerri Farley, are being credited with saving the lives of two boys, ages 4 and 5, who were asleep in the home on Hartford Court in the Bradford Place complex, near near Valley View Boulevard and Desert Inn Road, across from Clark High School.

"If these officers were not there to pull these children out when the did, they probably would have perished in the fire," Las Vegas Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said.

Standing outside Metro's Bolden Area Command several hours after the rescue, the officers appeared embarrassed by the attention.

"I don't feel we did anything differently than anyone else would have done in the same situation," Iulo, a Metro officer for six and a half years, said.

He noticed the smoke just before 9 a.m. and knocked on the door of the condo. He said he told the Spanish-speaking man who answered that his house was on fire, but the man "seemed dazed and confused. I don't know if he understood me."

A 20-year-old man had been asleep on the living room couch and also apparently wasn't aware of the fire.

The older man began yelling that his kids were upstairs, Iulo said.

Henson and Farley had arrived, and Henson joined Iulo upstairs while Farley helped the 20-year-old get the family's two pit bulls out of the backyard.

Iulo, Henson and the older man bounded up the stairs. Iulo said he just acted without thinking about it -- his mind was on rescuing the children.

Henson, a Metro officer for 14 years and a father, said, "I wasn't going to have my partner go up there by himself."

They opened the door to the back bedroom and thick smoke began rolling out. The man said his children were in the front bedroom, so they ran down the hall and found the boys asleep in bed.

Iulo said he wrapped the 4-year-old in a blanket and carried him out while the man grabbed his 5-year-old son.

"They were kind of confused," Iulo said of the children, but they were not injured and did not require medical treatment.

Firefighters arrived and extinguished the flames within minutes. The bedroom was destroyed and the two other bedrooms and hall sustained heat and water damage. Damage was estimated at $25,000, Szymanski said. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

There was one smoke detector downstairs, but the battery was missing, he said. Fire inspectors are investigating whether the owner of the condo should be charged for failing to maintain working smoke detectors. The family rents the home.

The American Red Cross is assisting them with shelter, clothing and food.

Although the officers don't usually run into burning buildings, they took it in stride and moved on.

"I just wanted to get back to going out on calls," Henson said.