An Ottawa dad is being hailed a hero after he started his birthday by rescuing someone from a burning house.
On Thursday morning, Matt Godin was picking up his birthday cake from his mother’s house when he saw smoke down the street.
“I noticed the first unit, there was flames coming out of the garage and smoke billowing out,” Godin told CTV Ottawa.
Godin quickly called 911 and then banged on the house’s door and windows. No one responded.
Seeing tire tracks and a car cleared of snow in the house’s driveway, Godin had a feeling that someone was inside.
“I was ready to break the door down, but I tried the door handle and it was actually unlocked,” Godin recalled. “The second bedroom I checked, there was an occupant asleep. I woke him up, told him that there was a fire, (that) we have to get our right now.”
That’s when firefighters arrived on the scene. Godin, however, wasn’t done helping.
“Our firefighters noticed that he was still in the area,” Danielle Cardinal, an Ottawa Fire Services spokesperson, told CTV Ottawa. “He was very, very adrenaline-infused and opted to take a shovel and helped to clear that hydrant at that particular fire.”
The hydrant had been covered in snow, even though Ottawa Fire Services encourages people to make sure that snow is cleared 1.5 metres around all hydrants.
“When they arrived, they asked if I wanted to help and they threw me a shovel,” Godin said of the firefighters. “And with all the adrenaline, I blew through the shovelling (of) that fire hydrant probably in about 20 seconds.”
That evening, for Godin’s party, his four-year-old son Theo chose a funny hat for dad to wear as part of a family birthday tradition.
“We went to pick them out and Theo said, ‘Oh, Daddy needs the fire hat because he made a rescue yesterday,’” Godin’s wife, Amy Gordon, said. “It’s pretty cute.”
Godin himself shrugs off the “hero” label, saying that he was just doing his part.
“It was 41,” Godin said of his birthday. “I won’t forget this one.”
