'He's my superhero': Tennis player Marek Dessimoz saves woman from fire

Marek Dessimoz, a member of the boys’ tennis team at Dowling Catholic High School, enjoys watching Marvel movies with his dad, but he considers them all fantasy. He says there’s no such thing as a superhero.

His mom would beg to differ.

Dessimoz was playing golf with his parents in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston, Iowa, this past Mother’s Day when they noticed the deck of a house across the street from the course was on fire. Dessimoz and his dad jumped the fence that bordered the golf course to see if they could figure out whether anyone was home.

While his dad went to the back of the house Dessimoz went to the front, where he peered through a window to see the homeowner. He pounded on the window, and the panicking woman opened the door and let him in.

Dessimoz and an Amazon driver, who happened to be in the neighborhood, convinced the woman to come out of the home just before a propane tank exploded. The flames spread from mostly on the back deck to the upper level of the house, including the roof. The house was totally engulfed in flames.

The woman then remembered her cat was inside and rushed back in, but Dessimoz and the driver brought her back out. The woman’s cat was later found — alive — in the house’s basement after the fire was extinguished.

Many people, including Dessimoz’s mother, Agnieszka Pieta, called him a hero for stepping up in a time of crisis.

“He’s my superhero,” Pieta told a local television station in Des Moines. “It’s the best Mother’s Day gift he can give.”

Dessimoz, who is about to begin his senior year at Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines, said he just did what needed to be done.

“I don’t consider myself a hero,” he said. “I saw how big it got; it was spreading on the walls. I just did what I thought was right.”