BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — When a fire broke out at a home in Buffalo, a stranger rushed in to help. Now the family is looking to thank him.
On Friday, May 5, a four-alarm fire broke out on the second floor of a home on Hartwell Road as the Pangallo family slept.
“Someone was throwing something against the house. They were like banging,” said Steven Pangallo. “Then my niece comes running down… ‘You gotta get out of here, the house is on fire.’ You know, she’s waking us up and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ She says, ‘No, no, I’m serious. The house is on fire, you gotta get out.'”
Steven’s brother, Allan, is in a wheelchair and he had to act fast to get him out of the burning home. It was then — as billowing smoke crept its way onto the first floor — an unknown man ran in to help.
“I had got him out of bed, I got him in the wheelchair, I wheeled him out into the living room and he’s like, ‘Oh my God, I gotta get a blanket,'” Steven said. “So he wheeled over to his desk and then some guy just came running in, screaming, ‘You gotta get out of here, the house is on fire.'”
The man grabbed Allan’s wheelchair, got him outside down the front steps, and before they knew it, he was gone.
“He was pretty skinny and he just had like a T-shirt on, a little beard,” Steven said. “I don’t know who he was, we’ve never seen him before. I don’t know if he was somebody picking the garbage because it was garbage night.”
Though much of the stuff in the home is a loss, the Pangallo family made it out safely thanks to Buffalo’s bravest and the man whom Steven calls, “an angel from somewhere.”
“I just wanna thank the guy, you know, he helped us,” Steven said. “I wanna know who he is and I wanna just say thank you.”
Damage to the home is estimated to be about $375,000 dollars. It’s unclear how the fire started but Steven believes it may have been electrical. A GoFundMe was created to help the Pangallo family get back on their feet.
Jordan Norkus is an award-winning anchor who has been part of the News 4 team since 2021. See more of her work here or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
