It had all the makings of a tragedy.
A smoky fire starts in the early morning hours at the back of the house. A husband and wife are sound asleep in the front bedroom.
But the tragedy was averted by a knight on a white horse...make that a heroic cop in a white patrol car.
"I have no doubt in my mind that the police officer saved our life,” Dermott White said Monday.
The guy he's talking about is Abington Township police officer Scott Dinsmore. He spotted the fire as he drove by and didn't hesitate.
"Forced entry on the side driveway door…physically broke the door open. The heat and smoke was too intense and I couldn't gain entry," Officer Dinsmore said.
Dinsmore couldn't get in, but the noise woke the sleeping couple.
By phone, White described what it was like in their bedroom.
"As we then opened the door to go down the hallway, to see if we could go down the stairs, the smoke was just coming up and we couldn't even see," White said.
So they shut the door, grabbed their two dogs and ran to the window where officer Dinsmore climbed up on a neighbor's ladder.
"I dropped the two dogs down to Officer Schroeder who caught both of them," said Dinsmore.
Then he helped Mrs. White down the ladder.
"Pretty much everything except for that second floor bedroom was on fire and there was starting to be smoke banking down from the ceiling in that bedroom," first responder John Hill said.
Hill had just arrived with his EMS unit. When Dinsmore and Mrs. White reached the ground, Hill went up to help her husband.
"And as I was coming down the ladder there was a window on the first floor that was right beside me, by two feet, and that blew out and the flames came flying out that window. I could feel them as soon as I went by and just by the grace of God, we got out of there," said White.
By the grace of God and the work of officer Dinsmore and the other first responders.
Here's part of the message the White's daughter left on his voicemail:
"You saved my parents last night from the house fire and I really appreciate that you were there because without you they wouldn’t have gotten out. It means the world to me that you did what you did for them," Rhian Lockard said.
