Mom and her 11-year-old were trapped in house fire with no escape — until her 67-year-old dad jumped from their 2nd-story window
A brave dad managed to keep his calm and saved his entire family during a house fire. It all started when the man's wife smelled smoke after midnight and alerted him to the same. The man, Otoniel Gomez, quickly checked what was happening and jumped out of his two-story bedroom to get his family out of the burning house. He managed to get all the people inside the house out and was praised for his courage. However, the family had lost their home and were hoping for help to get back on their feet, per NBCLA.
The family from Santa Ana would have faced a much bigger disaster if not for Otoniel's bravery. Around 1:30 AM, the man's wife informed him that she had smelled smoke. He got up and opened his bedroom door to check what was happening. The man could feel the heat and smoke from the open door and quickly closed it again. The 67-year-old then jumped out of a second-story window and landed on the patio to help his family get out safely. He first put a ladder near his own bedroom window, so his wife could get down safely.
He climbed the ladder three times and got his 11-year-old son, his adult son and an elderly woman living with the family out of the house, per OC Fire Authority's X page, @OCFireAuthority. "Open the window, son! Jump!" the dad screamed, according to OCFA. The entire family was out by the time the firefighters arrived to deal with the fire. The fire authority explained that the family was sleeping with their bedroom doors closed and it gave them some extra time to get out of the situation safely. The firefighters were able to get the fire under control. They also checked on one of the adults and took them to the hospital for further check-up. The family's chihuahua, Lyka, also made it out of the fire alive and well.
“Open the window, son! Jump!” a father shouted in Spanish as he pounded on the window of his sleeping son, with fire racing through their home.
— OCFA (@OCFireAuthority) December 5, 2025
Five people are alive today thanks to the heroic actions of a 67-year-old man at his home on South Linda Way in @CityofSantaAna. pic.twitter.com/lNWmoJQYLa
The man also managed to keep his calm throughout the incident, per NBCLA. Unfortunately, the family lost their house to the flames. Nonetheless, they were thankful to be together and alive in the situation. "To me, it's the family. We are alive — that's it. The other thing is just material," Otoniel remarked. "The husband opened the door and felt the heat and the smoke coming up through the house. He went out the bedroom window onto a back patio – about 9 feet tall – and jumped off that patio onto the grass," Captain Sean Doran from the fire authority recounted. "To save his family the way he did, that’s just instinctual," a neighbor, Frank Ramirez, pointed out.
"He was distraught and full of fear. He almost lost everything. This is nothing compared to losing his son and wife. Thank God he got that much out of it. The rest of it is replaceable," Ramirez went on. The man's daughter, Daisy Valdivia, set up a GoFundMe page for her parents to help them get back on their feet through housing and other supplies. The page had managed to raise $19,640 out of its $50,000 goal at the time of writing. "He even risked his own life to save his wife and kids and if it wasn’t for his quick action, lives would have been lost," Daisy expressed.