Todd Ness always wanted to b a firefighter - which explains why he rushed into a burning house to save a woman. (CHRIS DOUCETTE/QMI Agency)

OSHAWA, Ont — It’s often pointed out that fire fighters will run toward the dangers of a burning building while everyone else is fleeing for their lives.

That may explain, at least in part, why Todd Ness threw caution to the wind and bravely rushed into a smoke-filled Whitby home to rescue a complete stranger Monday evening.

“I wanted to be a firefighter a long time ago,” the 42-year-old Oshawa man told the Toronto Sun on Tuesday.

It was about 20 years ago that Ness fell just short of the final cut for the Oshawa fire department. But he’s never forgotten the valuable skills he learned back then, even as he went on to become a truck driver and start his landscaping business.

Ness, who is married with a 14-year-old daughter, was driving to a curling match around 7:40 p.m. when he spotted black smoke billowing from a home on Green St. — northeast of Brock St. and Hwy. 401.

Without hesitation, he pulled over, jumped out of his pick-up and ran to see if he could help.

After checking with neighbours out front to ensure someone had called 911, he asked if anyone was inside.

“They told me the woman who lived there had come out briefly and then went back inside to find her cat,” Ness said, explaining by then the feline was standing in the doorway and the woman was nowhere to be seen.

That’s when his past training kicked in. Ness entered the front door, sprawled himself out on the floor and began feeling around for the woman while calling out for her.

“I really didn’t think about it, I just did it,” Ness said. “It was just instinctive, I guess.”

“Then I heard a thud and I knew it was her,” he said, adding he figured the woman must be in trouble.

It turned out the “thud” was the woman collapsing because she was overcome by smoke.

“I really couldn’t see anything except an orange glow at the back of the house,” Ness said.

Undaunted, he lunged deeper into the burning home, felt around and somehow managed to find the woman on the floor.

“She was totally unconscious,” Ness recalled, adding he dragged her to safety and then checked to make sure she was breathing.

“I know you’re not suppose to enter a burning building, but once I knew for sure she was in there I had to try to get her out,” Ness said, adding he was in and out in a matter of seconds.

Firefighters arrived on the scene soon after, followed by paramedics, who whisked the woman away to hospital.

Rather than wait around, Ness climbed back into his truck and carried on with his curling game.

“I’m the skip, so I had to be there,” he said, with a chuckle.

Later, after his team had lost the match, Ness said he recounted the tale to his teammates, some of whom wondered why he would risk his life for someone he didn’t even know.

“I told them I’d like to think if it was my wife, or my daughter, that someone would do the same for them,” he said. Ness said the story of Ken Eindboden and his 12-year-old daughter Britney, who perished in a house fire just over a week ago in Toronto’s west end, was also still fresh in his mind. And he would never have forgiven himself he had driven past the fire and then heard the next day that someone had died.

Shawna Coulter, Whitby Fire Services Public Education Officer, said the woman spent the night in hospital and is expected to be fine.

The blaze, believed to be an electrical fire that started in a jacuzzi, caused nearly $300,000 damage, she said.

Coulter also applauded Ness’s heroism and said he’ll be recognized by the local fire department and recommended for a provincial citation.