A fearless stepdad suffered severe burns all over his body when he ran back into a burning Cleveland apartment to save his two stepchildren.
Cordale Sheffield, 30, was bloodied with skin peeling from his body and singed hair as he emerged from the building after the daring rescue on Monday afternoon, disturbing footage shows.
Sheffield, who lived at the Garden Valley complex with his girlfriend and her two children, was blown from the building when the explosion happened Monday afternoon — but rather than flee, he stormed into the flames, his eldest sister Cierra Alqawi told News5 Cleveland.
“When he got up, he looked up and he saw the two kids were still in the apartment, the ones that he was watching over. Those are his stepchildren,” she said.
He tried to make both stepchildren, ages 10 and 11, jump from the building — but only one did.
“He had to go back through the building to go get her and that’s when he got mostly burned. He went back in the fire to save her, but he was already burnt up. I think that’s when his hair caught on fire and stuff when he went back in,” Alqawi said.
Sheffield’s sister first learned about the blast and her brother’s injuries after seeing the disturbing footage of him on social media.
“Somebody was recording him up close. I saw my brother. I saw the comments saying he looked like a zombie. He looked like that. That’s what he looked like,” Cierra Alqawi told News5Cleveland.
Sheffield suffered burns on 92% of his body.
All of his skin had to be removed from his body and he’s undergone several surgeries, Alqawi explained.
He’s expected to remain in the hospital for at least six months.
The apartment complex blew up around 4:30 p.m. Monday, sending an entire neighborhood into chaos.
Heart-stopping footage obtained by Cleveland19 shows a terrified woman throwing her baby from a second-floor window to a crowd of people below.
Moments later, the bystanders flagged down firefighters with a ladder get the woman to safety.
The blast damaged 44 units, displacing roughly 100 people, and caused about $3.5 million in damage, Cleveland Fire Lt. Mike Norman said.
The cause of the explosion remains under investigation.
