A Star Valley woman is continuing her recovery at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center after receiving multiple injuries from a house fire. However, her outcome could have been much worse had it not been for two bystanders who fearlessly entered the burning building and helped her escape.

The incident began just before noon on Saturday, April 25 in the Town of Star Valley Ranch. Sonya Noles, an early childhood educator with the LUCDA, was in her kitchen preparing lunch. Sonya was cooking with oil which caught fire. In her attempts to put it out, the fire spread to the entire kitchen. In her attempts to put out the fire and escape, Sonya fell down the stairs, hitting her head and becoming trapped in the home. Moments later she was rescued by two unexpected heroes whom she had not met before.

RELATED: COMMUNITY RALLIES AFTER HOUSE FIRE IN STAR VALLEY RANCH –

SVI Media spoke with Scot Sorenson, an Osmond resident who by happenstance was in the right place at the right time. Sorenson was next door to the Noles’ home, only there to help his wife finish up a job for a construction cleanup company. Shortly after 11:30 a.m. Sorneson said he was in the garage, cleaning up and getting ready to leave for the day, when a neighbor came running up to him yelling that the house next door was on fire. The neighbor was able to connect to a 911 dispatcher as Sorenson began running up to the burning house. Dispatch had instructed him to check from propane tanks. After only seeing a 5 gallon tank, he ran up to the front door which was locked. He knocked and rang the doorbell, asking if anyone was inside. That’s when he heard Sonya.

“I could hear her yelling for help,” he explained. “I immediately knew I was going in to get her.”

After making sure Sonya was not near the door, he kicked it in. Sorenson describes how he immediately couldn’t see anything because of thick, black smoke. He yelled again and asked Sonya where she was, and heard her answer to the left down the stairs.

“I took a deep breath, pulled my shirt over my nose, and went in. A few feet in I was hit with the heat and it took everything out of me. There was no air in there. I had to go back outside. I asked her if there was another way in and she told me downstairs through the basement.”

That’s when pure adrenaline kicked in. Sorenson ran to the basement door, which he also had to kick in because it was locked.

“It was all in slow motion,” he continued. “I ran in, ran up the stairs, and saw her feet about halfway up.” Sorenson was able to grab Sonya by the hand and lead her injured body down the stairs. When he got near the bottom, another man showed up that helped him get Sonya to safety. He described Sonya as being disoriented, having multiple burns on her face, neck and arms and was black on her nose and lips from the smoke.

Matt Beal, another one of Sonya’s neighbors, was the second man to enter the home and help. He recalled how he could see Sorenson trying to get into the house by kicking in the doors, and could hear someone inside screaming. Beal said he quickly ran over to help.

“It’s just what you do when you see that stuff. You just don’t even think. You don’t have much time, gotta get in and out,” he told SVI Media. When he entered the home he met Scot and Sonya near the bottom of the stairs and helped get her to safety, the entire time hearing crashing sounds from above.

Matt, who is a former member of ski patrol in Jackson and has a basic medical background, was able to help stabilize Sonya until EMS arrived. “She had lots of burns, black on her face and was disoriented. She only knew her name.”

Matt credits EMS and firefighters for their quick response, saying that when firefighters arrived they confirmed that no one else was inside the house and then immediately began attacking the fire. Sonya was quickly treated by EMS as she was loaded into an ambulance and taken to Star Valley Health with second degree burns and smoke inhalation.

Sonya’s husband, Victor, was in Evanston when the fire started and thanked those that saved his wife’s life. “Thank you to each and every one of you. Eternally grateful to Scot and to all of the neighbors, community members, and friends that have taken us into your hearts, thoughts, prayers and actions,” he said in a social media post. “We appreciate every single one of you and everything that you have done for us. This will be a long road to recovery for us both in health and in life situations. We will make it through because of each of you and how you have taken us into your hearts. We will never forget this!”

Victor also provided an update on Sonya’s recovery while at EIRMC in Idaho Falls. Victor posted that as of Sunday afternoon Sonya was on minimal oxygen, her throat and lungs are healing and she had been up and moving around. However she did undergo cadaver skin surgery due to the burns and is dealing with pain, but the burns are healing.

Victor also shared more details about what happened to Sonya inside the home. “She remembered tripping and falling down the stairs to the landing towards the basement when she heard the smoke alarm go off and she tried to get up the stairs too quickly,” he said. “We couldn’t figure out why there was a hole in the wall on the landing and her phone was on the floor there. It now makes more sense. She remembers trying to put out the fire, but it was already too big.”

While firefighters were able to keep the house from completely burning down, the home and everything in it is a loss, including two dogs that lived with them. The body of one dog was found dead inside the home, and the other is still missing. However, it was a neighbor’s dog who also played the part of hero. According to Victor, another neighbor has a dog trained to alert for emergencies. The dog saw the smoke and alerted its owner, who is the neighbor that called 911 and ran to Scot yelling for help.

It will still be some time before Sonya is released from the hospital to continue her recovery. In the short term the Noles have found a rental that Victor says will fit their needs. In addition to insurance, the community continues to rally to their support. An account under the name “Victor and Sonya Noles Benefit Fund” has been set up at the Bank of Star Valley. Donations can be made at any branch. A Facebook auction titled “Helping Hands for the Noles” was created by yet another neighbor to raise funds.

“I just hope she’s doing good,” Beal said after being asked what has gone through his head in the days since the fire. “It sucks that her house burned down and she lost her dogs, but glad she’s alright.”