When Dennis Kucia smelled smoke at his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home on Tuesday, his first thought was to save his family.
They all made it out. But then Kucia heard someone call from inside the building. He crawled under the smoke that was quickly filling the house. His neighbor, who uses crutches, was struggling to make it out by himself, and so Kucia grabbed him by the shirt collar and dragged him outside.
The remarkable rescue was even more remarkable because Kucia has stage IV bone cancer and normally doesn't have strength to even "open a pickle jar," as he put it in an
Something, however, "possessed" him during the fire, he said.
Thanks to Kucia, his neighbor was able to escape with minor injuries.
The Red Cross rented a nearby hotel room for Kucia and his family, and is reportedly assisting the other families with temporary housing, too. All seven residents inside the home made it out.
Kucia is expecting a grandchild in the coming months, and he told reporters that his motivation to keep fighting the cancer comes wanting to hold the newborn.