SOUTH HAVEN | Residents of an apartment complex involved in a Friday night fire were full of praise Monday for two guardian angels in suits who appeared out of the blue to help evacuate elderly victims before emergency personnel arrived.

"They were like these angels that popped up out of nowhere," said Glen Cove Apartments resident Teresa Eckman.

Eckman pounded on doors to alert neighbors of the fire, but was deterred from approaching the two apartments under the second-floor blaze by heat and falling glass.

"I was scared to go in there," Eckman said.

Valparaiso residents Mark Ellis and Matt Polivica -- on their way home from a wake when they spotted the blaze just off Ind. 149 -- sprang into action.

The two moved through the falling glass and embers to lead residents, including an 86-year-old and an 88-year-old, from their apartments. Ellis took off his suit coat to cover the elderly residents as he helped them out and guided them to his truck.

Polivica couldn't make it up to the burning second-floor apartment, so he ran around to the back, where the resident had just jumped from her balcony.

The woman, Linda Smith, appeared to have suffered compound fractures to both ankles. With heavy smoke coming from the building, Ellis gave Smith his jacket and had her breathe through it as a filter until firefighters came with a backboard to carry her to an ambulance.

Ellis, 48, and Polivica, 28, operations managers at Luke's Oil, had just come from the wake for their colleague Barbara Heckman, who was slain at the Luke's One Stop convenience store in Liberty Township a week earlier.

Ellis suffered a burn to his thumb and a bruised hip from a fall on an ice patch he doesn't even remember. Both he and Polivica also had their suits ruined by the fire.

Resident Jeanette Buckman called the two heroes for their quick action and bravery.

But Ellis and Polivica discounted that notion.

They were just doing their civic duty, Polivica said.

"True heroes are the kind who go and fight in wars," he said. "We were just glad we could help."

"We knew we had to do something, and we had to do something fast," Ellis said. "We were a couple of guys at the right place at the right time."