-
Dec 25, 2007 6:45 pm US/Central
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
5-Year-Old Saves Family In Indiana
PORTAGE, Ind. (CBS) ―
A Northwest Indiana boy gave his family a priceless gift on Christmas day. He helped them escape a fire inside their home early Tuesday morning.
The 5-year-old hero, Alex Reeves, said he learned to crawl on the ground in his kindergarten fire safety class, a lesson he used when the smoke alarms went off in his home.
"It went like beep, beep," Alex said.
His parents say their furnace motor was burning, CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago's Pamela Jones reported.
"It was actually very thick smoke in here, you could barely see. My eyes were burning. I mean the smell was just terrible," Alex's mother Stephanie Reeves said.
"Somebody bypassed the safety that was supposed to blow a fuse if the motor got too hot. And they put the wires together and put a piece of aluminum foil," James Reeves, Alex's father, said.
Alex crawled to find his sisters, ages 3 and 7.
"He went and grabbed her and said 'follow me.' And they all crawled to the staircase," James Reeves said.
"It surprises me that this little one kept his head cool, and Mom was running around like a maniac trying to find a fire," Stephanie Reeves said.
So while mom was checking the oven to see if last night's pie was aflame, the 5-year-old was guiding his sisters to safety, a Christmas story that's music to this family's ears.
"I'm so proud of Alex. He did a really good job and he did exactly what he was supposed to," Alex's father said.
The family hopes to get their furnace fixed before dad has to go on a training mission with the U.S. Army Reserves in early January. In the meantime, it gets awfully cold in their home without any heat, so they planned to spend Christmas with the grandparents.
Thanks in part to Alex, no one inside the home was hurt, and they didn't lose any of the gifts Santa brought overnight either.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)