A Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office deputy was awarded a medal of valor for his actions in pulling an elderly woman out of a burning group home in Loganville Thursday.

Deputy Tim Kutsch had just gotten off work as a patrol deputy and was almost home around 11:40 p.m. when he saw a home that was fully engulfed in flames. As he drove up, a woman met him in the driveway saying there were six elderly people inside who suffered from dementia or other diminished capacities.

Kutsch went to the first window and broke it. The room was filled with smoke and it was difficult to breathe or see more than two feet, but he could make out a woman at the base of the window. "I was yelling to her, but she was unconscious. I was trying to grab her." Kutsch called to another man who was outside the house and they managed to get hold of the woman’s arms.

The man left, and Kutsch pulled the woman out and brought her to the grass, cutting his arm in the process. "I was bleeding so bad I couldn’t do much after that, " he said. Later he described it as "a little cut, not a big deal. Eight or 10 stitches."

Other residents of the house began coming out, and other first responders came on the scene. Kutsch called the firefighters who responded "the real heroes."

When he reported for work the very next day, he was surprised with a medal for valor from Sheriff Eric Levett. "That’s a huge honor," said Kutsch.

"I never would have thought that. It’s pretty cool."

Kutsch joined the RCSO in 2009 as a corrections officer and became a patrol deputy in 2012. He and his wife and children live in Walton County.