A heroic man has died after saving his family from a house fire and searching for an engagement ring he bought for his girlfriend.
Steven Weatherford, 37, was sleeping on the couch in a home in Oakland, California, when a blaze broke out on Christmas morning.
He rescued his dad, aunt and his brother from the burning home, said Oakland Fire Department spokesman Michael Hunt. But he went back in.
Steven’s girlfriend, Lashante Mayo, said she had just found out that he planned to propose to her on New Year’s Eve.
‘He was trying to save everybody, make sure everybody was out of the house,’ his aunt, Eunice Smith, told KGO.
‘He may not have known they all went out the back.
‘And my other nephew was calling for him because they were all in the back, and they were calling, “Steven! Steven! Come out! Come out!” and they heard him screaming. And he never made it out.’
Authorities said Steven returned to get his belongings and may have become disoriented by the smoke.
But his family say they believe he may have gone back to look for the engagement ring.
‘He had bought the ring. He didn’t get a chance to give it to her,’ his girlfriend Lashante’s mother, Sandra Clark, told KGO.
‘But it is in the house, and we are going to find it.’
A GoFundMe page for Weatherford states that he ‘went back inside to search for something, but then didn’t make it out’.
Firefighters recovered Steven’s body inside the home after responding to the blaze around 6.15am. Officials said it initially appeared that he died of smoke inhalation.
The fundraiser confirmed that Steven was visiting from Antioch and planned to propose to Mayo on New Year’s Eve.
‘When I meet him, I said, “That’s the one. That’s the one.” Her father and I, we just loved him so much,’ Clark said.
‘And he loved her (Lashante) so much.’
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
The GoFundMe page had raised more than $12,000 as of Thursday evening.
SOURCE: metro.co.uk
