DeKalb firefighters rescued a quadriplegic man Thursday morning from his burning third-floor apartment.

Noel Henderson was trapped in his bedroom at about 7:30 a.m. when either an overturned box fan or the attached extension cord caught fire.

Henderson dialed 911 and remained on the line with the dispatcher until firefighters entered his apartment.

DeKalb’s ladder truck was the first to arrive, and with the help of the dispatcher speaking to Henderson, firefighters were able to immediately raise a 35-foot ladder to Henderson’s bedroom window.

Firefighters Jason Pavlack, Joe Cahill and Lt. Paul Campbell scaled the ladder and pulled Henderson through the window and carried him down the ladder to safety.

“I’m very proud of the people that handled the situation and the cooperation between them,” DeKalb Fire Chief Lanson Russell said. “The actions that they took undoubtedly saved that man’s life.”

Firefighters extinguished the blaze in 10 to 20 minutes, which was before the fire could enter other apartments or engage structural elements of the building.

Residents of the Hillcrest Place Apartments 6000 building at 220 E. Hillcrest were evacuated.

Thirty-two firefighters responded to the scene, including an engine from Sycamore. Cortland firefighters manned the station for the roughly two-and-a-half hours that firefighters battled the fire and cleaned up afterward.

“It was a relatively small fire, but it did a lot of damage because there was a lot of thick, acrid smoke,” Russell said.

Damage from the fire is estimated at $60,000.