An Indiana man saved the lives of five people during a late-night house fire captured in a harrowing body cam video by police.
It’s often nice to be alone, but one of the most affirming things about living among a community is seeing how quick neighbors can be to help each other out.
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That’s especially true when things are at their darkest and the stories we’ve heard about heroes stepping up in perilous situations make it clear that we never know who could one day save our lives. It could be someone who was suddenly thrust into our lives by a bizarre accident, it could be someone who’s helping from thousands of miles away, and it could even be our beloved pets .
But what they have in common is that the people they made a difference for will never forget them. And for one man, that gratitude extends beyond the family he affected and is felt by his city at large.
At about 12:30 am on July 11, police and firefighters in Lafayette, Indiana responded to a house fire that saw the building fully engulfed in flames.
As a representative from the city wrote in a Facebook post , the advanced stage of the fire that we can see here prevented them from entering the house. Fire crews quickly worked to try and extinguish the flames, especially once they learned that a six-year-old girl and a 23-year-old man were still inside.
But as Fox 59 reported, what they didn’t know was that the man in question was already mounting a rescue of his own after discovering the fire at around the same time.
The man is Nicholas Bostic and since he didn’t have the means to call 911 at the time, he rushed into the house in case people were still trapped inside.
And as he told the city, he entered through the back door and yelled about the danger, which woke up three children and their 18-year-old sister in time for all of them to evacuate.
However, Bostic soon learned that their six-year-old sister was still inside, which prompted him to immediately run back in and try to find her.
Since the smoke was thick enough that he couldn’t see anything, he was about to consider the rescue impossible when he heard a faint cry from downstairs.
As the city’s representative wrote, “He knew he was there to get that child out, and even though the fire and smoke downstairs frightened him, he would not quit.”
Although he soon found the child, he could no longer find the back door and instead decided to escape through an upstairs window. He smashed the glass with his bare fist, disentangled the girl’s leg from the window’s drawstrings, and hurled himself from the window after making sure he would land on the side of his body that wasn’t carrying the child.
In the full video, we’ll see that he then ran out to emergency workers and handed the frightened child to them.
As rescuers tended to him, it was clear that Bostic had become seriously injured in the process of his daring rescue.
But while he was described as suffering from severe smoke inhalation and deep cuts to his right arm, all he thought to say was, “Is the baby OK? Please tell me the baby’s OK.”
And as first responders would assure him, it turned out that the child was able to come away from the danger with miraculously minor injuries.
In their words, “Yes, you did good, dude.”
Indeed, that sentiment was shared by the fire department and Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski, who have since publicly recognized Bostic’s heroic actions.
The city’s representative also stated that Bostic will be officially honored on August 2 at a local baseball game and proceeds from that day’s ticket sales will be donated to Bostic’s GoFundMe page.
At the time of this writing, the campaign seeking to cover the costs incurred during Bostic’s recovery has raised a little over $14,500 towards its $50,000 goal.
h/t: Facebook | City Of Lafayette
