A man named Justin Middlebrook is being hailed as a hero for his quick actions during a fire at a Scarborough apartment building that resulted in one woman being sent to the hospital. The incident occurred at the low-rise building located at 3941 Lawrence Avenue East, near Orton Park Road, just before 5:30 p.m. Emergency services were alerted after multiple reports of smoke emerging from a window.

The fire, classified as a one-alarm incident, was identified in a third-floor unit and has since been extinguished. A woman was taken to the hospital with serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, while paramedics reported that several units responded to the scene to assess other individuals. Fortunately, no one else required hospitalization.

Middlebrook, who resides across the street, was the first to call 911 and took it upon himself to alert the residents of the building. He recounted that he was on his balcony with his daughter when he noticed a smoke odor. “I just started yelling for people to get out, I told my wife to call 911,” Middlebrook explained. He then rushed inside and knocked on as many doors as he could, starting with the unit he suspected was the fire's origin.

He successfully alerted the occupants of that particular unit, who emerged with smoke-related concerns. Iftekhar Ahmad, a resident of the building, identified the injured woman as a family friend. Ahmad expressed concern for the woman’s cats that she had in her apartment. "I saw the two cats they had rescued; they came out of a yellow piece of paper. I'm not sure if they survived or not,” Ahmad said, expressing his gratitude toward Middlebrook for his life-saving actions.

Ahmad highlighted how Middlebrook's efforts were critical in getting him safely out of the building. "He rescued me, I was sleeping... I was the last person out so I could have been sleeping,” he remarked about the heroic actions taken by Middlebrook during the chaos. Middlebrook admitted that he felt some nerves when he approached the unit that was on fire, particularly while he was banging on the door. “While I was on the top floor it kinda kicked in when I was banging on the door of where the fire was; I was nervous, were the flames gonna shoot out at me?” he recalled. “That had my heart going for a second; other than that, I didn’t really think about it.”

In the aftermath, a TTC shelter bus has been provided for residents who were evacuated from their homes, although many have since been allowed to return. The cause of the fire remains under investigation by authorities. The quick actions of Middlebrook not only saved lives but also underscored the importance of community awareness and responsiveness in emergency situations.