US mayor rescues neighbour from burning home, is treated for burns, smoke inhalation

NEWARK, N.J. – The mayor of New Jersey’s largest city said Friday he thought he might die when he dashed through a burning, smoky kitchen to find and rescue a neighbour from her second-floor bedroom.

“I felt fear. I really didn’t think we were going to get out of there,” Mayor Cory Booker, his burned right hand still bandaged, told a news conference in front of the boarded-up home.

The 42-year-old mayor, who has dug out snowbound residents in a blizzard, lived in a rundown housing project to make a point and tagged along on police patrols to lecture drug dealers, took on a new status Friday: the politician who can do almost anything.

Thousands took to Twitter, calling Booker Superman and inviting him to solve the North Korean missile crisis or run for president. The governor called it a “brave move” and the fire director said the mayor was one of the most heroic men he’d ever met.

Booker rushed into the burning home shortly after returning from taping a television appearance on Thursday, pushing aside his security detail that tried to hold him back. Following 47-year-old Zina Hodge’s faint calls of; “I’m here, I’m here. Help! I’m here,” Booker lifted her from her bed and carried her on his shoulders through the burning kitchen, where flames had rolled over the roof and back down the wall.

He nearly panicked in the stairwell, where Newark Det. Alex Rodriguez was helping him bring Hodge out. He couldn’t see through the smoke.

“That was the moment I had a conversation with God,” Booker said. “I really didn’t think we were going to get out of there.”

Booker, coughing heavily after the rescue late Thursday, was treated at a hospital for smoke inhalation and second-degree burns.

Hodge was listed in serious condition Friday in the intensive-care unit of the burn centre at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. Fire officials said she had suffered second-degree burns to her back and neck and smoke inhalation. The hospital would not provide details of her injuries.

Hodge’s mother, Jacqualine Williams, called the second-term mayor “a super mayor” who should become president.

Booker downplayed his actions, saying he just did what any neighbour would do, “which is jump into action to help a friend.”

“I didn’t feel bravery, I felt terror,” he said. “It was a moment I felt very religious, let me put it that way.”

Even critics of the mayor, some who refer to him as “Story Booker” for what they call a history of courting publicity to boost his national image while ignoring problems in the impoverished city, offered grudging praise.

“I commend the mayor for what he’s done, but the people in this city need jobs,” said Joanne Miller, who lives in Booker’s neighbourhood. “That’s the real kind of hero we need in this city.”

As mayor, Booker has been known to ride along with police on late-night patrols, once even chasing down a robbery suspect. The Peabody award-winning Sundance Channel series “Brick City” documented his efforts to decrease the city’s crime rate and tackle ongoing financial problems. Profiles have appeared in Time magazine and Esquire. He’s even shovelled out resident’s cars during a blizzard that snarled his city and the rest of the Northeast in 2010.

As a city councilman, he spent months living in a trailer parked on some of the city’s most drug-infested corners, and publicly fasted for 10 days outside a violent housing project. He lived in another tenement for years to call attention to blight; it has since been shut down.

Booker, who has attracted names like Oprah Winfrey and the $100 million donation to schools of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, has brushed off rumours that he has his eye on higher office. But he set up a federal political action committee — an organization that campaigns on behalf of candidates or issues — fueling speculation that he might run for governor or the U.S. Senate.

When the mayor arrived at his neighbourhood on Thursday, two members of his security detail had already taken several members of the family from the home; Williams was screaming that her daughter was still inside.

The officers tried to keep him from going, but Booker, a former member of the varsity football team at Stanford university, was no match for Rodriguez, who is trained to protect him, not fight him.

“It wasn’t easy trying to hold him by the belt,” Rodriguez, who is considerably shorter and slimmer than Booker. “He was insisting, ‘If I don’t go in there, this lady is going to die.'”

Rodriguez helped Booker take Hodge down the smoky stairwell and out. Then, “we both just collapsed,” the mayor said.

“I had my proverbial come-to-Jesus moment in my life,” he said.

Hodge and the mayor were apparently burned as embers fell from the apartment ceiling while Booker was carrying her. The officials said the fire likely started in the kitchen.

A prolific social media user, Booker tweeted late Thursday and early Friday that he was fine and thanked his followers for their well-wishes. “I will b ok,” he wrote.

The Twitter-sphere was blowing up Friday with thousands of tweets from Booker’s million-plus Twitter followers about the rescue.

Even Gov. Chris Christie tweeted, wishing Booker a speedy recovery and adding; “Brave move, Mr. Mayor.”

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Follow Samantha Henry at http://www.twitter.com/SamanthaHenry

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