Seeing smoke pouring out of a neighbor’s house inspires most
people to run to the nearest phone to call for help.

But one Bradford teen and his father ran into a smoke-filled
house Sunday – not knowing whether the house was on fire – to see
if a neighbor needed help.

“I didn’t even really think. I just kind of reacted,” said Vince
Pascarella, 17, describing what he and his father, Mark, did for
their neighbor – a woman they know only as Jill.

Derrick City Volunteer Fire Chief James Kelley explained Monday
the woman is Jill Bressan of 459 Bolivar Drive, who was in the
house alone at the time when her neighbors spotted smoke coming
from the house.

“I was hosing down my driveway and I noticed smoke coming out,”
Vince said. “I said to my dad ‘I think that house is on fire.’ We
walked up that way and asked a neighbor, Jan Bean. She said the
lady, Jill, just got out of the hospital and was in there.”

When they got to the front door of the house, Vince explained,
they couldn’t see any flames, only a lot of smoke.

“The screen door was open,” he said. They went in to see if
Bressan needed help.

“Me and my dad walked in. The lady was passed out on the floor,”
Vince said. “We carried her outside. I called 9-1-1. The lady was
unconscious when we found her. I’m a lifeguard so I knew what to
do.”

A lifeguard at Barcroft Pool in Callahan Park for the past three
years, Vince advised his father of a carrying technique for
rescuing someone from the water. That’s how the two carried Bressan
to safety.

The home is located very close to the Bolivar Drive fire
station, and rescue personnel were at the scene within one minute
of Vince’s call, Kelley explained Monday.

Upon inspecting the house, the rescue workers determined the
smoke was from food burning on the stove. “The whole kitchen could
have caught on fire,” Kelley said.

“It filled the house full of smoke,” he said.

Kelley called the rescue “courageous.”

“He put his life on the line for someone else,” Kelley said,
referring to the take-charge teen who used his lifeguard skills to
help. “That’s courageous.”

Bressan was not listed as a patient at Bradford Regional Medical
Center on Monday. There was no information immediately available as
to her condition. Kelley said she had been taken to the hospital to
be checked out for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters used positive pressure ventilation fans to clear
the smoke out of the house.