Fire, girls' screams moved him to action

When firefighters arrived in the 1300 block of North Wildcat Diers Road, near West Speedway and North Greasewood Road, just before 11 p.m. Monday, a frazzled Jaime Velasco stood near two soot-covered sisters and said an alarming few words.

"Hurry. Their mom is still inside."

Velasco, a 33-year-old father of two, said he was relaxing at home when the doorbell rang.

A woman he didn't know told him the house next door was on fire, but that she didn't think anyone was inside.

Velasco, who saw smoke but no flames, went to his backyard to hose down his wall, just in case.

First, he heard sirens and then he heard the girls' screaming.

"They said, 'Mommy, what's wrong? Mommy, what happened?' " Velasco said. His next move was instinctive.

"I just heard kids, and I thought, 'Oh no, this is messed up,' " said Velasco, who added that he couldn't help but think of his own two children at the time.

He jumped the wall that separates the two homes and ran to the window.

The girls, who had been asleep, opened the bedroom window but couldn't get through the screen.

"I think they were super, big time in shock," Velasco said of the 8- and 10-year-old girls.

He yanked out the screen and pulled the younger sister from the dense smoke, and then the older one. "Who else is inside?" Velasco asked them.

"My mom," the younger sister told him.

A barefoot Velasco took a deep breath and jumped into the home through the window, but he stepped on a Lego toy and opened his mouth in a grimace.

"I sucked in all kinds of smoke," said Velasco. "In one step I was already dying. I knew I couldn't get to her."

As he got up and stuck his head out the window, he saw the firefighters, who then took over.

"When they pulled the mom out, she just looked lifeless," Velasco said.

Capt. Tricia Tracy, a Tucson Fire Department spokeswoman, said the mother was hospitalized with serious injuries, but she didn't know her condition. The two girls were taken to a hospital for evaluation but later released. Officials did not release the family's name.

Tuesday afternoon, Alan Lee, who owns the home and rents it to the young family, said he knows the mom at least made it through the night.

"They can probably pull her through," Lee said, as he stood outside the home.

From the outside, the cream-colored, one-story home looks almost untouched. A sign on the front window warns the house has been condemned.

But the inside tells a different story, Lee said, as he pointed to the remains of a melted and charred refrigerator behind yellow caution tape.

Unattended food on a propane stove in the kitchen started the fire, Tracy said, adding the damage was about $150,000.

Lee said he'll probably have to gut the house because of smoke damage. He said he has fire insurance.

Lee said he talked briefly to the girls' father, who works late and wasn't home during the fire, at the scene Monday night.

Later he sent him an e-mail "to say, basically, don't worry about it."

Both Lee and firefighters agree on one thing - they're glad Velasco took action. "He risked his life. He's a real hero," said Tracy.

Velasco, who builds concrete countertops, said he doesn't think he did anything that someone else wouldn't do, but he said it definitely meant a lot to have firefighters come up and shake his hand and give him a hug.

After coming home from work Tuesday, Velasco, who still had a cough, said the experience put things into perspective for him.

"When I pulled the little girls out of there, I thought to myself, 'We all definitely have purposes.' "

Contact reporter Marisa Gerber at mgerber@azstarnet.com or at 573-4142.