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‘I’ll catch you’: Mother breaks her back saving daughter from house fire

The mother is hospitalized and unable to walk after a vertebrae in her spine shattered.

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Crystal Dawson said she was just being a mom, but that’s an understatement.

The Virginia woman had to catch her stepdaughter as she jumped from a window to escape the flames that were engulfing their home in Lynchburg.

When she did that, she fell and hurt her back. She’s now hospitalized and unable to walk after a vertebrae in her spine shattered.

"When I tried to catch my daughter, she landed on my chest,” Crystal said.

Crystal said woke up around 1 a.m. to make her baby a bottle when she saw the flames. She and her husband, Brian Dawson Jr., got the baby out of the house, but their two other kids were still upstairs.

"I was scared. I was crying. I was like dad, I can't get out, I can't get out. And he's like you got to come out,” Brianna Dawson said.

Brian tried to go up the stairs for them, but the flames pushed him back. The kids’ only option now was to jump out of their second-floor window.

Brianna got her brother, Christian Dawson, to her room.

"When she got me up and I saw the smoke and I saw the stairs on fire. I was like is there a fire? And she said yes we got to jump out our window,” Christian said.

Brian said he couldn’t catch them because of a back injury. Christian jumped and did a tuck and roll and then it was time for Brianna to jump.

"She's expressing to me, Crystal I'm scared, I don't want to jump,” Crystal said.

But Crystal insisted, telling her: "You need to jump. I got you. I'll catch you."

Her family is calling Crystal a hero but she said she just did what any mom would do.

"No mom is going to stand there and let their kids die because of a house fire,” she said. “They're going to do everything they can, and if that means that I died in place of her, I would have done it in a heartbeat."

The family says Crystal will need to have surgery. A GoFundMe has been set up for the family.

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