Instinctive Courage

 

"I shouted, 'Anybody here? Get out! Get out! Fire!

"I ran inside and looked under beds and closets, but I couldn't find her. But when I got to the stairs that led downstairs, I heard some faint crying."

"I rolled her up in my arm like a football, then felt my way back up the stairs. It was extremely hot and smoky, and it was painful to breathe."

"The only light I could see was coming from the rooms upstairs. So I headed up there."

Nicholas Bostic, passerby, Lafayette, Indiana

 

"His selflessness during this incident is inspiring."

"What he doesn't understand is his actions weren't ordinary, they were extraordinary."

"He went down those stairs to save that little girl when he thought it was impossible just moments before. He knew he was risking his life."

"There's only one way to define that; courageous and heroic."

Lt. Randy Sherer, Lafayette Police Department

The Barrett family, of Lafayette, Indiana, whose children were rescued from a house fire by passerby Nick Bostic  | Credit: Go Fund Me

 

Some people are imbued with that level of heroism, to react to emergency events instinctively and with determination to help extract others from dangerous, life-threatening situations. He did calculate his risk, knowing that he was submitting himself through his efforts to rescue a group of children, to the very danger he was anxious to prevent them from suffering. Nevertheless, he pushed on, knowing he must. Perhaps a fleeting argument passed through his mind that he had to live with himself.

A man who works for a pizza establishment, it was not any training as a first-responder that propelled him to action, but rather an inborn sense of responsibility to others drew him to commit himself to a dangerous venture. He was simply the proverbial right man at the right time in the right place to save the lives of five people ranging in age from an infant to an 18-year-old minding her younger siblings in their parents' temporary absence.

The young man, 25, a mere seven years older than the oldest person he led to safety from a raging house fire, was on a mundane mission; he was driving to fill up his vehicle at a gas station at the midnight hour. Then as he passed a two-storey house in Lafayette, Indiana, he realized there were flames licking the front of the house. He braked, turned around and drove into the driveway.

 

Nick Bostic endangered his life to save four children and their 18-year-old sister from fire (Nick Bostic/Facebook and GoFundMe)

 

He had forgotten his cellphone at home and was unable to dial 911. When he attempted to alert another driver he met with no success. Seeing and hearing nothing from the house he ran around to the back, found a door unlocked and rushed in, to be met with thick smoke. He spoke afterward of stinging eyes and nostrils. When he called out whether anyone was there, hoping to establish whether the house was occupied, there was silence, and he turned to leave.

As he did a teenager appeared at the top of the stairs and with her were three young children. The teen was 18, babysitting that July 10 for their absent parents, the three young children her siblings, along with another teen who was a family friend. The family's parents were out for a night of social relaxation. Selonna Barrett had been frantically waking up her charges after smelling smoke. Nicholas Bostic took charge of the situation, ushering everyone out of the house.

Then Selonna informed her rescuer that six-year-old Kaylani remained in the house. The staircase leading downstairs where he heard the crying when he re-entered the burning house was dense with smoke, the heat unbearable. He hesitated for a split second and then plunged down the stairs to search for the child. "I thought, 'I don't want to die here'" he recounted later. Holding his breath he followed the crying voice through complete darkness.

When he reached the child he scooped her into his arms hoping to return the same way he entered. But he was now upstairs and the staircase was suffused with thick smoke and nothing could be seen through the dark haze. He used his right fist to smash a window, wrapped the child next to his left side and leaped the two stories to the ground below.He fell onto his right side, the little girl was cushioned on his left side, by his body.

All of this took 15 minutes. And the  young man's quick thinking saved five lives. Selonna had called her parents and they rushed back home, arriving to discover their home aflame and the six-year-old  with minor injuries being treated by paramedics. Nicholas was sent by ambulance to hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation along with first-degree burns on his buttocks, right ankle and right arm. A neighbour had called 911, spurring firefighters' arrival.

Nick Bostic, center, and girlfriend Kara Lewis, left, with the Barrett family, whose children he saved from a house fire      Credit: Facebook