Ronald H. Larsen rescued Nicholas R. Nolte from burning, Elko, Nevada, January 17, 1997. Nicholas, 3, was one of three children remaining in his family’s one-story house after fire erupted in the kitchen at night. Neighbors, including Larsen, 57, excavating contractor, responded to the scene and began to look for the children. Larsen entered the house by climbing through a bedroom window; he crawled throughout the room to search for them but was forced by smoke to return to the window for air. He penetrated the house again, leaving the bedroom and crawling through an adjoining hall toward the burning kitchen. Finding Nicholas unconscious on the floor of the smoke-filled hall, Larsen took him to the bedroom and handed him through the window to others. Larsen searched the hall again for the other children, who were rescued by a police officer and a firefighter, before exiting the house through the bedroom window. Nicholas and the two other children required hospitalization for treatment of burns. Larsen sustained smoke inhalation, for which he was treated at the hospital.
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71503-8173