Newark Mayor Cory Booker was taken to a hospital tonight for treatment of smoke inhalation he suffered trying to rescue his next-door neighbors from their burning house.

"I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said in recounting the fire. Booker told The Star-Ledger he also suffered second-degree burns on his hand.

The fire started in a two-story building on Hawthorne Avenue in the Upper Clinton Hill neighborhood, shortly before the mayor arrived home after a television interview with News 12 New Jersey.
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Booker said when he reached the second floor, he was engulfed in flames and smoke.

"I suddenly had the realization that I can’t find this woman." Booker said. "I look behind me and see the flames and I think "I’m not going to get out of here. Suddenly I was at peace with the fact that I was going to jump out the window."

Then he heard her cries in a back bedroom.

"I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed," Booker said. The two made their way downstairs, where they both collapsed, Booker said.

[Booker's security] Detective Rodriguez, who had helped others out of the house said when he saw the mayor go in, he thought his career in protection was over.

"Once he went in, I said, 'Oh my goodness, this is it.' " Rodriguez, 39, said.