Sacramento man who saved couple from house fire is hailed as a hero

A man credited with pulling two neighbors to safety from a Sacramento house fire was honored by Sacramento city leaders who hailed him as a hero Tuesday.Robert Longer rushed into a nearby home on Normington Drive where a married couple in their 70s lived after the building caught fire on Nov. 26. He first rescued the man and then used a doormat to shield himself from the heat of the fire and returned to the home to rescue the woman. "You know, we're hiring," Mike Taylor, deputy chief of the Sacramento Fire Department, joked during the council meeting. He said that without Longer's early assistance, "things would have turned out a lot worse for sure.” “Robert single-handedly saved both victims while putting himself in harm’s way," he said. "Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.” The man who was rescued also appeared at Tuesday’s meeting to praise Longer’s actions. He said that his wife is still in the burn unit at UC Davis Medical Center. “But thanks to this guy here, she’ll be able to come home someday,” he said. Longer said he was glad the man was OK and that his wife was on the mend. He called them both “good neighbors and amazing people.” “I would just hope that if any of us were in a similar situation, even though it's probably not advisable, but that we would try to do the same for our fellow neighbors,” Longer said. Longer said that he “obviously didn’t think” before running into the burning home. “I just ran across the street in my slippers. But, you know, when there's a chance to help out, I guess we just do what we have to do in the moment, including grabbing a doormat and putting it over your head,” he said. The city then presented him with a resolution in his honor.