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'She thought she was going to die there': South St. Paul Police department rescue woman from burning home

Body camera video worn by the two officers show them crawling under smoke and flames to try and rescue an elderly woman in the home

SOUTH ST PAUL, Minn. — It was a phone call Don Novack never expected to wake up to Wednesday morning.

"I got a call around 5 a.m. yesterday morning," Novack said. "There was a fire at the house."

That fire at his mother's South St. Paul home destroyed her living room, sending her to the hospital.

"Very worried, got out of bed fast and ran," Novack said.

She's alright – no burns, but being treated for smoke inhalation. Novack says at the hospital, she told him her thoughts while the flames continued burning.

"She thought she was going to die there," Novack said. "Burn and die there."

Sergeant Michael Dahl and Officer Aaron Schmidt of the South St. Paul Police were the first on scene. Body camera video worn by the two show them calling out for help, before entering the home.

"Sergeant Dahl and I looked around, tried to find an access point, and that's when we went into the residence and tried to start looking," Schmidt said.

"Police department, anybody in there!" an officer shouts on the video.

The video shows the two crawling under smoke and flames, calling out to Novack's mother to respond.

"Knowing that there's somebody in there, we need to do our best to safely get into that get into that house and grab that person, if possible," Dahl said.

The heat became too much, so the pair had to find another way. They searched the outside of the home, eventually spotting her in a back window.

They broke the window, crawling over the furniture to find her lying in bed.

"I had her grab my shoulders, one thing that she said that I'll always remember is fire, I'm scared," Schmidt said. "Just having that, having her say that to me, made it little bit bigger to make sure that she got out and was safe."

Both Schmidt and Dahl won't admit that they're hero's, simply saying that what they did was part of their jobs.

Novack would disagree.

"We think of them as patrolling a neighborhood, but, to get on their hands and knees and crawling in a burning home, that takes a special person," he said.

Novack has started a GoFundMe to help cover costs to repair and rebuild his mother's home. You can find that fundraising page here.

Other residents in the home tell KARE 11 they've also lost a tiger-striped male cat. They say he doesn't like being picked up, but will respond to food.

That cat was last seen in the 100 block of Frost Street in South St. Paul.

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