Man dies after being pulled from north Houston house fire

HOUSTON

It happened around 12:20pm at a home in the 800 block of North Loop near North Main.

Friends, neighbors and even a man passing by tried to rescue him.

As flames shot out the front of this house along the north loop, Terence Brown knew he had to do something.

"I was exiting 610 and saw the fire, got off and entered the neighborhood from the back," he said.

Brown and several neighbors tried to rescue the man who was trapped inside, but the flames were already too strong.

"We tried to break down the back door with a piece of wood," Brown said. "One of the other guys went and got a sledgehammer and we finally broke the door down after five or six times; yelled in, nobody ever responded."

Among the several neighbors who tried to help was aspiring videographer Tiwan Megget, who not only captured the house enveloped by fire but also saw the moment firefighters pulled the man out and tried to save his life.

"When he came out, he wasn't moving," Meggett said. There were a lot of people around him, they were pumping on his chest and everything, but they he wouldn't respond."

The man was quickly rushed to the hospital, but by the time his relatives made to the house, they were told he didn't survive.

"When I saw the house, I knew something bad had happened," cousin Verna Muse said. "He's a good guy. He would help anybody. He would even help old people, like me."

A lot of neighbors tell us they knew him because he would mow lawns in the neighborhood and do small chores.

Investigators would not speculate on the cause of the fire, but neighbors who have seen the man for years say they believe it has to been an accident. They just wish they had a chance to save his life.

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