Justin Baird helped rescue Glen Havers from burning, St. Catharines, Ontario, December 6, 2023. Inside his burning apartment on the second floor of a two-story building, Havers, 63, lay unresponsive in the doorway near the top landing for a stairway leading down to an exterior, street-level entrance. Baird, 25, off-duty police officer, and his friend, also an off-duty police officer, were walking to a restaurant at about 11:30 p.m. about 400 feet away when they smelled and saw smoke. Seconds later, they heard windows shattering and saw flames pouring out of the apartment 20 feet into the sky. Both ran to the scene and told bystanders to call 911. Baird’s friend kicked in a locked glass door at street level and both ran and then crawled up the stairs through heavy smoke. At the top of the stairs, the friend saw an open door, entered, and tripped over Havers’ feet. The friend moved farther inside the room, bending as flames poured out of the doorway near the ceiling above him. The friend grabbed the boots with both hands and pulled Havers out to the stair landing, passing his legs to Baird. Baird grabbed Havers’s legs and started crawling backward down the stairs while his friend, holding the man under his arms, slid down on his buttocks. Navigating around and stumbling over clutter on the stairs, they carried Havers to the first floor and outside to the sidewalk. Havers suffered severe burns to his head and face and was hospitalized for several weeks, but he recovered. Baird recovered from smoke inhalation.
