Hydro-Quebec workers on duty in Hudson restoring power after Tuesday's ice storm are being credited with rescuing a woman and two children from a housefire early Wednesday.
Mario Menard tells CTV Montreal they were driving along Main St. at 6:15 a.m. looking for downed tree branches, when they saw a red glow coming from a house along the street.
Menard says he heard screaming from the house, which he realized right away was on fire.
"Little children they were screaming 'help me, help us, help me,'" he said. "Just after that I called right away 9-1-1 and during that time I parked the truck just beside the road and we ran to the house and the people were just outside of the window. One leg outside of the window and the other inside the house and fire around them."
Menard says there were two little girls, eight and 10 years old, on the second floor of the house. He told them to jump.
"They didn't want to jump but after a few seconds they jumped, and we caught them," Menard said.
They were not hurt, but the woman had to be treated for minor injuries.
By the time firefighters arrived at the home, they said the flames spread so fast inside the house, they would not have been able to get inside to rescue those trapped upstairs.
They told CTV Montreal that without the Hydro workers' intervention, the three would have been seriously hurt, or even killed.
The blaze completely destroyed the house, leaving little more than its frame.