This is a picture of former Butler County resident Dakota Taylor, who dragged an elderly woman out of her burning apartment two months after moving to Clearfield County. He is holding the plastic hamburger bun bag that he put over his mouth when he ran into the burning apartment.

LAWRENCE TWP, Clearfield Co. — Butler native Dakota Taylor wanted to start a brand new life in a new place with his fiancé, and he did just that in a big way.

Taylor, 24, was smoking a cigarette in front of his three-unit apartment building late at night on Sept. 23 when he saw the police speeding toward the building.

The police instructed Taylor to get those in his apartment and the one other apartment outside because there was a fire.

When he went to the other neighbor's apartment to alert the elderly female resident, no one answered the door.

Taylor ran through his apartment to the woman's back door, where a police officer was trying in vain to get the locked door open. The young man took matters into his own hands.

“I just kicked the back door in,” Taylor said.

He spied a woman on the floor of the bedroom whose eyes were open and who was breathing.

A police officer then entered and helped Taylor pull the woman onto the front porch.

A full report will appear in the Butler Eagle.