Matthew Hawker, 17, climbed a 15-foot ladder to rescue L.A. firefighter Jason Chapman’s 5-year-old son, who was trapped in a fire inside their home on Tuesday. (Photo: CBS)

More than 26 firefighters responded to the inferno that engulfed a Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. home, trapping Joy Chapman and her 5-year-old inside Tuesday night, but it was one quick-thinking teen who really saved the day.

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While driving past the property around 10:30 p.m., Matthew Harker told the San Bernardino County Sun that he saw flames and “heard someone yelling for help and I jumped from the car and just ran to the backyard.”



Chapman and her son, Brayden, had been woken up by their fire alarms but weren’t able to get downstairs because of the smoke and fire inside the house. The mother jumped off the balcony to get help but the more-than-15-foot fall broke her leg, and Brayden remained trapped inside.

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“I broke the sliding glass door with a shovel and tried to find him, but the smoke was so thick I couldn’t see anything,” says the recent high school graduate, set to start college at Cal Poly Pomona in September. So he found a ladder outside and climbed up onto the balcony to get Brayden. “I grabbed the kid and when I picked him up he was pulling my hair and slapping me because he was scared,” Hawker told KABC. “But I lifted him over the balcony and lowered him down.”

Hawker is now considering a career in firefighting, according to The Sun. (Photo: CBS)

Brayden’s dad, Jason Chapman, is calling Hawker a hero for what he did. And he should know — he’s a firefighter.

“It’s incredible what he did,” the father, who was heading home from work at the time of the blaze, told CBS-LA. “It’s good to see the young people have that much initiative to go out and just get the job done.” Yahoo Parenting could not reach the Los Angeles Fire Department for comment.

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The Chapman’s home sustained more than $500,000 in damage. (Photo: CBS)

Yet Hawker says his actions were all instinct. “I know there was a lot of dangers, like, I could’ve possibly lost my life, but at the moment, all I was thinking about was the boy,” he says, adding to the Sun, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

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