Ernest Beauparland and Ronald Rock

On the morning of Feb. 3, 2020, an 83-year-old man who used a wheelchair was trapped on the second story of a burning building after flames broke out on the third floor and the electricity turned off making his motorized chairlift inoperable. After realizing the Fairhaven, Massachusetts, building was on fire, his daughter, who was on the first floor, and his granddaughter, who was on the second floor, went to Colin G. Jackson and moved him from his bed to the floor of his bedroom. They could not hoist him down the stairs however and yelled out for help. Ernest Beauparland, a 66-year-old retired laborer of New Bedford, Massachusetts, was driving nearby and saw flames. He stopped and run up the stairway, along with a 58-year-old ferry boat captain of Fairhaven, Ronald Rock, who was also driving nearby and responded. Beauparland and Rock grasped Jackson under the legs and, backing slowly down the stairs, carried him outside, as fire spread along the ceiling above them. Beauparland and Jackson inhaled smoke, but they recovered.

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