( CNN ) -- Making the catch was never a life or death matter for Jeff Bryant until a baby dropped from a burning apartment building in a Portland , Oregon , suburb fell into his hands Saturday morning . If Bryant had failed , the boy would have landed on a concrete parking lot . As it was , the child and his mother survived , but two other sons of the mother died in the blaze . Bryant discovered the Milwaukie apartment building was on fire as he walked out the door of his nearby residence around 9:30 a.m. `` I could hear buzzers and saw black smoke as I walked down the alley , '' Bryant told CNN . `` Then I saw a woman hanging out of a fourplex holding a baby in her hands . '' Without hesitating , Bryant dumped the coffee cup he was carrying , ran to the building and yelled at the woman to drop the baby to him , he said . `` Are you sure you 'll catch him ? '' Bryant recalled the woman shouted at him . `` Of course I will , '' Bryant said he replied . `` I knew for a fact that I was not going to drop that baby . '' Bryant , who played basketball in the eighth grade , said he was n't thinking about snagging a rebound . `` It had nothing to do with my hands , it had to with coordination , '' Bryant said . That , said Bryant , and , `` I pictured one of my own children hanging out that window . '' The woman , whom authorities identified as Kimberly Hasty , 24 , then dropped her 1-year-old son , Wani Lemi , into Bryant 's arms . Bryant then ran to the far side of the parking lot to get the child away from the intense heat . Hasty then jumped out of the second-story window of her apartment . Bryant wrapped Wani in a quilt a friend brought to him . He said he then told others who arrived at the scene to take Hasty away from the burning building . `` I was worried the windows were going to explode , '' Bryant said . `` Which they did . '' Bryant said the flames were so large they threatened other buildings in the complex , including his own . Bryant said he then told his wife and two children to get out of their apartment . Clackamas Fire District 1 spokesman Steve McAdoo said it took three minutes for firefighters to respond to the blaze . By the time they arrived , the baby and his mother had been rescued and the apartment was engulfed in flames . Two of her other sons -- 4-year-old Ladu Lemi and Appolo Lemi , 5 -- died after firefighters pulled them from the burning apartment building . An autopsy by the Oregon State Medical Examiner 's Office found that the boys had died of smoke inhalation . McAdoo said that had Bryant not been there , the blaze could easily have killed all four family members . Hasty and her surviving son were listed in stable critical condition at a nearby hospital , authorities said . The cause of the fire remains under investigation . Bryant was reluctant to accept being called a hero . `` I just thought it was the correct thing to do , '' he said . `` If it was me and my child , I would hope a passerby would do the same thing for me . ''
April : Victims of Portland - area fire identified . Oregon woman in her apartment tosses baby boy to safety . Passerby catches , saves baby before firefighters arrive at scene . Mother and son both in ` ` stable critical '' condition . Two other sons die in the fire .