Daring fire rescue saves 62-year-old woman

HOMOSASSA, Florida - Fighting smoke inhalation and physics, two Citrus County deputies and a good Samaritan pulled a 62-year-old woman from her burning home an instant before flames engulfed the room she was stuck in.

"It was a very narrow window," said Dep. Troy Taylor, 43, of where he found Elizabeth Podoll trying to escape the flames.  "I didn't have enough leverage to pull her out myself."

Taylor arrived at Podoll's home on S. Celeste Point about 1 a.m. to find flames 75 feet in the air and the woman losing her senses because of the smoke inhalation.  He said because of the height of the window, nearly four feet off the ground, and the woman's size and age, she got stuck and he couldn't get her out.

Dep. Chad Doyle, 37, arrived shortly after Taylor, but the two deputies couldn't move Podoll either and the flames and smoke began to overtake them.

"'Help, help,'" neighbor Deborah McQueen remembers hearing.  "'We can't get her out!' That's when my husband ran over there - barefoot, just in his shorts."

McQueen's husband, Gregory Avery, helped the deputies dislodge Podoll and pull her to safety at the very last moment possible.

"As soon as her feet came out the window and hit the ground, the flames came out the window," recalls Doyle, crediting Avery for saving the day.

Avery didn't want to take credit, saying, "I was not going to let her burn.  It was just three people doing what they had to do."

All three men suffered minor smoke inhalation, but the deputies returned to finish their shifts and Avery went about his day.

Podoll was airlifted to Shands in Gainesville because of smoke inhalation, but was expected to recover quickly.

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