True Neighborliness

Instinct says run from the fire, not toward it. It takes enormous courage to defy that urge and race into a burning building in which the only light is provided by flames. In Capistrano Beach, Russell Coble did that. Eight times.

Coble, 44, a Huntington Beach building inspector, was working in his garage late at night on July 3 when fire broke out in the house next door. He rammed his way through the front door and helped 78-year-old Hank Marsh get outside.

Coble kept going back inside to find Jenny Marsh, 75. Staying close to the floor to avoid the densest smoke and groping his way along, Coble finally made contact with a leg and pulled the woman to safety.

Coble is not the only one deserving credit. Another neighbor, responding to the home’s electricity being knocked out in the fire, aimed her car headlights at the building; others trained garden hoses on the blazing structure; a passerby banged on a garage door to try to alert the Marshes.

Jenny Marsh was hospitalized for treatment of burns; her husband escaped serious injury. The neighbors who came to their aid in this emergency provided a heartening reminder of a prime element in building communities--residents looking out for each other and doing what they can to help those who need it.