Layton police officer wins national award for saving woman from burning house
Layton Police Officer Mitchel Porter poses with his family after being sworn to the Layton force in November 2018. Porter won a national award on Tuesday, June 2, 2020, for saving a woman from a burning house on Jan. 12, 2020.
Porter
Layton firefighters battle a house fire on Jan. 12, 2020.
LAYTON — On his third urgent attempt to find a woman trapped in a burning house, Mitchel Porter got another lungful of smoke and finally succeeded in pulling the victim to safety.
Porter, a 26-year-old Layton police officer, on Tuesday was named April officer of the month by the National Law Enforcement Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C.
“I’m really surprised,” Porter, a Kaysville native who spent five years in the Army, said of the award in an interview Wednesday. “I wasn’t expecting anything like this, a national award. I’m really honored. It’s pretty cool.”
On a cold Sunday before dawn, Jan. 12, Porter was the first responder to the fire on Summerwood Drive.
Flames engulfed the house, and two people in the driveway said another person was inside, probably in the basement.
He went through the front door and tried to find a way downstairs, but he got lost in the smoke and went back outside.
Porter ran around to the backyard and kicked a hole in the back door after he found out the knob was too hot to touch.
“But there were flames right there and it was super hot, so that was a bad idea,” he said.
He saw one last possible way inside, a basement window, so he kicked it in, sat in the window frame and tried to talk through the smoke to a middle-aged woman inside. She spoke broken English, so they could not communicate well.
“I could hear her talk to me and she grabbed my hand,” Porter said.
Smoke inhalation had taken a toll and they were down in a window well.
“I couldn’t stand up, let alone lift her,” he said.
But just then several other Layton officers arrived. Porter said Officers Cody Bowman, Braden Peterson and Sam Rockwell helped get him and the woman to safety.
Peterson, “the hulk of the group,” did most of the lifting, Porter said.
“If it wasn’t for them showing up, it might have ended up being a little different story,” he said.
Looking back, Porter said it happened fast and he had no time to ponder what to do.
“You don’t really think about it, you just do it,” he said. “That’s the mentality I got out of the military. I just kind of went for it.”
In its announcement of the award, the Law Enforcement Officers Memorial said Porter “jumped into a deep, narrow window well to help the woman escape.”
“Officer Porter did not hesitate to take action to save a woman’s life, despite the clear dangers to his own,” said National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund CEO Marcia Ferranto in a news release. “He is a true example of what it means to answer the calling of law enforcement.”
Porter also is in line to receive Layton’s Police Star, the department’s third highest award.
“The medal may be awarded to an officer who, willingly and selflessly in the line of duty, distinguishes himself/herself by the performance of an act of courage involving risk of imminent serious personal injury for the purpose of saving or protecting human life,” the award description provided by the department reads in part.
“Officer Porter and the other officers involved that day didn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to get to the woman inside and we’re very proud of their selfless service,” Layton police spokesman Lt. Travis Lyman said Wednesday.
Porter said that because of smoke inhalation suffered that morning, he still has to use an inhaler, but he expects it will not be needed permanently.
“I think initially running in the front door was a bad idea,” he said.
Porter, the woman and one of the other officers were treated at a hospital, but no one was seriously injured.
Porter said he visited her in the hospital later that day and she thanked him.
It was “pretty cool” to be able to save her, he said. “I’m glad that she’s OK and I would love to see her again sometime.”
Porter said being able to save someone from a fire might have been a once-in-a-career event.
“I did that without thinking and I’d probably do it again without thinking, he said.
Porter was sworn in to the Layton Police Department in November 2018.