Imagine: Boxing Day, 1997, and you are visiting a friend to bring him a belated Christmas gift. You just arrive, you hear the sound of a smoke alarm, and you notice smoke coming out of a nearby apartment.

This is the situation that Mike White, NBCC Woodstock’s network administrator faced that very day.

White, who graduated from the college’s Smythe Street Center in Fredericton, was visiting his ex-roommate when he notived smoke coming from the upstairs apartment. In the apartment, 86-year old Alice Smith was living by herself.

White ran up the stairs where he encountered smoke thick enough “that you could cut it with a knife.” He then ran back downstairs grabbing an old rag soaked with cold water to put over his face.

He recalls that it took him about three or four attempts to get through the thick smoke and in Smiths apartment.

“I couldn’t see any flames, there was just smoke,” recalls White.

Once finally inside the apartment, White says it took him about 10 minutes to find Smith. “I screamed and hollered for her the whole time I was in there,” says White.

After calling her name for a while, White says, she finally responded. White followed her voice, and by feeling around in the dense smoke, found Smith in her room.

“When I found her, she was really disoriented and was actually wondering what was going on,” says White.

Now that he found her, his rescue was just beginning. White says getting out of the apartment was a little more difficult because Mrs. Smith was a little bigger than he was. “So by the time I got her out, I was pretty wiped,” White recalls.

White immediately took the disoriented White directly to his car to warm her up before the Fire Department showed up.

The fire department arrived shortly thereafter and Smith and White were both treated for smoke inhalation and later released.

After investigating the scene, the Fredericton Fire Department concluded that the origin of all the smoke came from the kitchen.

“Apparently she left some chicken on the stove a little too long,” says White.

Recently, White recived a letter from Geri White, the woman’s daughter, who expressed her deepest thanks to White for his actions. At the end of the letter Geri Smith wrote, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Since Alice Smith can no longer live on her own, she has recently moved to Ottawa to live with her daughter Geri.

Prior to his heroic actions, White had no previous safety training, and says he has TV to thank for what he knows.

“All I acted from was what I remembered watching on ER,” White says jokingly referring to the popular NBC hospital drama.

After it all, White remains humble and doesn’t consider himself a hero, but is glad that he was at the right place at the right time.