Story highlights Shelby Carter apparently put her baby in a car seat and dropped her to safetyIt's not clear why the young mother couldn't escape the house fire(CNN) A young mother who died in a house fire is being called a hero because she managed to save her newborn daughter's life, authorities said Friday. Shelby Carter, 21, apparently strapped her baby into a car seat, broke a second-floor window and dropped the child to the ground below, said Ed Foglesonger, chief of the volunteer fire department in Wyoming, Illinois. "We're all wondering why she didn't go out after the baby." An autopsy showed she died of smoke inhalation, the Peoria Journal Star"The house was engulfed in flames," Stark County Sheriff Steve Sloan said in a statement. Carter "was a hero as she put her baby into a car seat and dropped the baby to the ground."

Source: CNN February 04, 2017 14:37 UTC