Local

3 middle school students save woman from burning home

WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Three seventh graders are being called heroes after they saved a woman from her burning home Tuesday afternoon.

Belle Vernon Area Middle School students Kyle Husar, Hunter McKenzie, and Brayden Epple were walking home after school Tuesday when they came across a house on fire on Jacobs Street.

“I opened the door, the door was unlocked, and I yelled if anyone was in there,” Epple recalled. “She was yelling from the other side of the house, ‘over here, over here.’”

The three boys ran to the other side of the house, where they found two extension ladders.

“Me and him [Husar] put it on the window, and she got out while he [McKenzie] was calling the cops,” Epple said.

Just minutes after they got Robin Owens out of the house, the fire got worse.

“Before we got her out there was like, a little flame in the corner of the house, but we got her out and it just kind of went up from there,” Epple said.

Owens escaped with second-degree heat burns on her arm, side, and back. She’s currently at the West Penn Burn Center.

A few cats die in the fire, some ran off.

Channel 11′s Andrew Havranek spoke with Owens’ daughters, Kera Owens and Jamie Lint, over Zoom from the hospital room Tuesday.

“She’s doing good, sitting over there in her chair,” Owens said. “They’re making her move around a little bit.”

They’re incredibly thankful those three seventh graders were walking by.

“Most kids are just playing on their phones and not worried about anything, and these boys went the extra mile to do what they did,” Lint said.

The teens are thankful they were able to help.

“[We’re] thankful we got her out in time and could save her,” Husar said.

The family said they have a long road ahead of them.

If you would like to help, they have set up a GoFundMe: https://wpxi.tv/45CKOil

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW