During a frightening fire in a Bronx apartment on Sunday, January 9th, Fatima Wood found herself and her two children trapped in a 19-story building filled with smoke and flames.

Escaping seemed nearly impossible when a stranger, whom they had never met, appeared in the stairwell offering assistance. This neighbor bravely helped them down from the ninth floor, grabbing Wood’s three-year-old daughter and continuing down the steps.

The neighbor, identified as Mahamed Keita, wrapped the little girl in his jacket to keep her warm, stating, “As soon as I got down, the kid was cold, she didn’t have enough clothes.”

While waiting for help, Keita was alongside others who were struggling to breathe, watching as CPR was performed on some.

The scene was overwhelming, and he admitted, “People were just going through, they couldn’t breathe, they were performing CPR, cardiac arrest. I’ve never seen something like it, so I was just shaking the whole time.”

By the time Wood and her other child exited the building, Keita, along with the three-year-old, was already on his way to the hospital in an ambulance.

Thankfully, the whole family was able to reunite that night once everyone was discharged from the hospital.

Fatima Wood expressed her emotional turmoil, saying, “I cried all day, even when we got here to the hospital and we finally see her, I was still crying because it’s so traumatizing.”

Keita humbly reflected on his actions: “I was just trying to do the right thing. Everybody was struggling, lots of people lost their lives, I was just trying to do the right thing.”

Deeply grateful, Wood looks forward to personally thanking Keita for his act of bravery.