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One Man Killed In McKeesport House Fire

McKEESPORT (KDKA) -- Firefighters pulled a man from his burning home Friday night in McKeesport, but the man later died at the hospital.

Friends and neighbors stood outside the burned out home, saddened and in disbelief that the occupant, 58-year-old Eric Johnson, is gone.

Johnson was trapped in the house on Anderson Street in McKeesport Friday night after a fire broke out in the kitchen. Carlos Rubero can't get Johnson's last words out of his mind. He heard them when he kicked the door in and tried to save his neighbor.

"When I was laying in bed, I heard it all night, the man said, 'I'm here, right here,'" Rubero said. "I couldn't do nothing by myself. [A police officer] made me leave."

Rubero says a McKeesport police officer showed up as thick smoke engulfed the wood-framed house.

"He said, 'Get away from the door, firemen are on the way, they'll be here shortly,'" Rubero said. "I said, 'He's right there, we can grab him, get him out,' he said, 'The house is going to blow up, get away.'"

Firefighters showed up and pulled Johnson from the house. But to make matters worse, Rubero says the fire hydrant behind his house wasn't working, and it took longer to put water on the fire. Johnson was taken to McKeesport Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"How could they leave him in there to die?" said Sandy Murtha, the victim's girlfriend. "He's a human being, and they just left him in there, and they threw him out into the yard. They threw him like he was a dog."

Murtha says he was a veteran and an EMT for more than 30 years.

"He went [after Hurricane Katrina] for weeks to help them clean up, and this is what he gets for serving his country," she said.

Meanwhile, Rubero says he'll live with the frustration of not being able to help his neighbor.

"It just seems like they was pushing me away, and I was only trying to help out," he said.

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