POCATELLO — FedEx driver Kortnie Balls will never forget her Wednesday morning drive to work.
The 25-year-old Gate City resident saw a mobile home on fire in a south Pocatello trailer park and moments later became a hero, though she would never call herself that.
Balls explains that she "sprung into action," crawling into the burning residence after learning a man was trapped inside the inferno and then pulling him to safety.
If not for her heroics, the 76-year-old man who lived alone with two dogs in the mobile home on the 6300 block of South Fifth Avenue would surely be dead.
"Once I found out someone was in there, I knew that I had to get him out," Balls said.
The elderly man, who had pre-existing health problems and was immobile, suffered severe burns in the 7:30 a.m. blaze that destroyed his mobile home, damaged a nearby car as well as adjacent mobile homes, and resulted in the evacuation of neighboring residents. He was transported via Pocatello Fire Department ambulance to Portneuf Medical Center and then airlifted by emergency helicopter to a hospital in Salt Lake City for further treatment.
As of Wednesday night his name and condition had not been released.
Balls said he was conscious and talking when she pulled him to the doorway of his mobile home, though he was badly burned and bleeding.
Once Balls got the man to the doorway she got help from another hero, Anthony Evans, a Walmart employee who resides in the mobile home park and had just finished working his overnight shift.
The 33-year-old Evans had been the first person on the scene. He let the dogs out of the burning residence, dialed 911 to report the fire and then tried to rescue the elderly man after hearing him yelling for help.
Evans said he entered the residence four times and at one point grabbed the elderly man's hand but the smoke, fire as well as the man's exploding oxygen tanks beat him back.
Balls entered the inferno afterward and pulled the elderly man to the doorway but needed help. With Evans' assistance and the fire closing in, they were able to pull the man onto the mobile home's porch.
"It was the most insane experience I've ever had," Evans said.
With flames quickly consuming the porch, three Bannock County sheriff's deputies arrived literally in the nick of time to help the exhausted rescuers by carrying the elderly man out of harm's way.
Those deputies were Lt. Jeremy Taysom, Hayden Klauser and Elrich Schaffner. They thought so highly of Balls' actions that they gave her what's called a Challenge Coin for her heroism for saving the elderly man's life. The sheriff's deputies give such coins to people who perform extraordinary deeds, and Balls qualified.
Taysom said it seemed like everyone arrived at the scene at the exact right time — Balls spotting the fire and crawling into the burning mobile home, Evans helping her pull the victim out of the residence and onto the porch and then the deputies responding when they did.
"Everything fell into place so we could get him out," Taysom said.
The elderly man's two dogs, a black Labrador retriever and tan chihuahua, are being cared for by mobile home park residents. The dogs were not injured in the fire.
The Pocatello Valley and Pocatello fire departments responded to the blaze and extinguished most of the flames in about 30 minutes. Firefighters were still dousing the remaining hotspots hours after the fire.
The blaze destroyed the man's mobile home and caused exterior damage to a car parked nearby and two adjacent mobile homes as well as a shed.
The people who lived in adjacent mobile homes were evacuated while firefighters battled the blaze but have since been allowed to return.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Bannock County Sheriff's Office.
Neither Balls nor Evans knew the elderly man prior to the fire. Other than Evans suffering a bloody nose, they performed their heroics unscathed.
Balls said that after the elderly man was transported to the hospital and firefighters had gained the upper hand on the fire she returned to the scene to make sure there had been no one else inside.
"It's definitely a lot to process," she said about the fire. "There was a lot of adrenaline. I didn't think about what could happen to me. I only thought about getting him out of there."