When police officers arrived at a wooden house in Culpeper, Virginia, on the evening of Oct. 3, thick smoke was pouring from the windows.
Residents of the building’s separate apartments were already outside, according to the Culpeper Police Department.
They told officers that one man was still unaccounted for and might remain trapped inside.
Culpeper Police Department officers enter a burning home to save a man from the fire. (Culpeper Police Department)
Officer Ashley Sain immediately ran toward the burning home. Without protective gear, she entered the building and began checking doors for anyone who might still be inside.
Officer Neal Coffey joined her moments later.
Body-worn camera video shows one officer racing up the stairs, passing red-lettered “No Smoking” signs posted along the walls.
On the second floor, the officers found a door locked from the inside. Smoke seeped through the cracks above and below it.
Over the piercing sound of smoke alarms, Sain called out, “Police department, if you’re in here!”
Police officers and firefighters responded to a house fire in Culpeper, Virginia, on Oct. 3, 2026. (Culpeper Police Department)
Coffey used a small pocket tool to open the lock, then carefully pushed the door open while announcing, “Police department!”
No one responded.
Dense black smoke surged from the bedroom, and the officers could see flames inside.
Sain shouted again: “Police department! Anybody inside?”
By then, Sgt. David Cole and Officer Michael Beel had also reached the second floor.
Body-camera footage shows Coffey dropping to his hands and knees before crawling flat across the wooden plank floor. Using a flashlight, he searched through the smoke.
“I can’t see!” he yelled, his voice growing increasingly desperate as the smoke thickened around him.
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Coffey moved forward on his chest, reaching through the smoke until he suddenly located an unresponsive man lying on a bed.
“Hey brother, come on!” he urged frantically while pulling at the man’s arm.
“Come on! Come with me!”
He shouted again through the smoke to fellow officers.
“We’ve got to get him out! I have him! He’s breathing!”
Video shows him struggling to move the man.
“Hey! We need help!” an officer shouted.
Coffey pulled the limp man onto the floor. Beel crawled in to help.
Together, the four officers dragged the unconscious man into the hallway.
Then a firefighter in protective gear emerged through the smoke.
A team of firefighters carried the man out of the burning building, and extinguished the fire.
The rescued resident was transported to a hospital, then transferred to a regional burn center. His name and the cause of the fire have not been released because those details are part of an active investigation.
Three of the police officers also were treated at a hospital for smoke inhalation and other injuries. They were released that evening.
Officers who helped save a man from a burning house fire received valor awards from the Culpeper Police Department. (Culpeper Police Department)
All four who braved the smoke and flames were honored with valor awards on Oct. 14, Capt. Kevin Tooley of the Culpeper Police Department told News Outlet. He was a supervisor on the scene.
“They went above and beyond the normal call for a police department,” Tooley said of his team.
“We normally don’t go into burning buildings. I mean, that’s not our job. That’s typically the fire department’s job. But we don’t know how to say no, especially when there’s a life … that we know we have to save.”
