'I'm getting you out of here': Dramatic rescue after blaze at Winnipeg rooming house

A Winnipeg man says he had to drag his elderly grandmother off the floor and through a window out onto a balcony after the rooming house they live in caught fire early Sunday morning.

Travis Cory has been staying in the house with his grandmother. He said heard beeping coming from a smoke detector and when he opened the door, smoke rushed into the room.

"We're just lucky we're alive," Cory said. His grandmother was passed out on the ground and he couldn't see through the thick, black smoke. "I'm yelling 'grandma, grandma, get up there's a fire come on, hurry, hurry!'"

"I could barely breathe and I grabbed my cat, put him in my bag, threw him out the door and then I grabbed my grandma and threw her out the top of the window there ... got her on the balcony," Cory told CBC Sunday.

It took about 20 minutes to get her out of the house while he was begging the sick 75-year-old to get out, he said.

"She said 'just leave me here to die, just leave me.' I said 'no I'm not leaving you in this house, you're coming, I'll die before you go. I'm getting you out of here."

Ledoux said Winnipeg police officers gave the children blankets to keep warm and an emergency bus was brought in for everyone to stay on until emergency accommodations could be arranged.

Both Ledoux and Cory are staying in a hotel provided by the Red Cross but said after a few days they'll be homeless and have to turn to a shelter.

"Every man for themselves," said Ledoux, who is worried vandals might get to the rooming house before he can retrieve his belongings from his room.