Collette Wieland reporting

An early morning apartment fire sends five people to the hospital. One man was severely burned when his kitchen went up in flames.

Fire officials say the situation could have been a lot worse if it wasn't for the quick actions of someone passing by.

It happened just after Midnight Wednesday morning at the North Pointe Apartment Complex near Cheyenne and Rancho. Most of the family was able to make it out with a few bumps, bruises, and smoke inhalation.

But the man inside the apartment is covered in burns and may not make it at all.

"Yea, everybody helps each other out," says Abel Trevino. "Everybody's pretty nice."

That's how neighbors at the North Pointe Apartment Complex describe their community, a quiet place with few problems.

But that wasn't the scene early Wednesday morning. Trevino lives downstairs from an apartment that caught fire in his building.

"It was filled with smoke. You could see smoke coming out of the windows, the window breaking and falling down to the ground. I've never seen anything like this before. It's pretty scary."

Trevino and his family heard the screams of a young mother calling for help. She was stuck inside her apartment with her boyfriend and their two young children.

"The lady was screaming and she was unable to get out with their children," says Tim Szymanski, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue.

By the time fire crews arrived on the scene, a Good Samaritan was already hard at work trying to save the family.

Raymond, who asked not to be identified on camera, helped the trapped woman to lower her two children from a second-story window. Once they were safe, he ran upstairs to find her boyfriend.

"I didn't think twice about it at all. I went upstairs to try and open the door. It was locked so I went ahead and kicked it open. When I looked inside, you could see nothing but the smoke and the fire."

On his second time in, Raymond found the man. He was barely conscious.

"I'd seen that the man was lying on his stomach on the couch and his legs were on the floor. So that's when I proceeded, went ahead inside and picked him up and brought him downstairs and laid him down on the floor. And at that time I noticed he was burned real bad - his arms, his legs, his feet, his skin was hanging out."

With Trevino's help, Raymond dragged the man down the stairs of the apartment complex. At that point, fire crews were on the scene hustling to put out the flames.

Raymond and the four others inside the burning apartment were transported to the hospital. Their injuries range from severe burns to smoke inhalation. The man's burns are considered life-threatening.

Raymond doesn't consider himself a hero but just someone who did what they could do to help.

"I did it because I figure if I was in a situation, I hope that somebody would at least take a chance to try to go in and help me. I look at it this way: Everybody's a human being and everybody deserves a chance to live. And if the man lives, bless him. I mean, I tried to do what I could for him."

Fire officials estimate the total cost of damage to be around $50,000. The kitchen is gutted and the rest of the unit has heavy smoke and water damage.

A few other apartments in the building have some minor damage as well.