A group of upstate New York teenagers, including the son of a police chief, helped save a family from a house fire on their way home from their prom earlier this month, wild video of the rescue shows.
The high schoolers were driving home from the Whitesboro High School junior prom in Marcy on May 17 when they spotted flames shooting out of the family’s garage and quickly leapt into action, according to WKTV.
Footage taken by the teens captures the frantic efforts of 17-year-old Aiden Kane as he bangs on the door to alert the family inside that a fire in their garage was quickly spreading to their house.
“It’s just crazy that we were the first ones there,” Kane told the Observer-Dispatch.
As Kane banged on the front door, his friend Donato Jellenich called 911, while his other friend Tyler Sojda ran to the garage to make sure there wasn’t anybody trapped inside.
“Donato immediately called 911, Tyler ran towards the garage to check it out and I ran up to the door and started pounding on it,” he said.
The dramatic video shows how it all went down.
“Your house is on fire, your house is on fire,” Kane shouts in the clip. “It’s on fire.”
After a few seconds, a young girl opens the door.
“I know my dad is calling the police,” she tells him.
“You’ve got to get out,” Kane says.
He escorts the girl and her sister out of the house with their dad and comforts them along the way, the footage shows.
“You’re ok, you’re ok,” he says as the children shriek. “Just walk over here, come here. You’re ok.”
Something explodes in the fire, and the children scream louder. Kane urges them to get behind a car across the street.
Kane’s girlfriend, Morgan Randall, calmed the girls down and wiped tears from their faces just as another explosion detonated, the video shows.
By then, the fire was melting the side of the main house, according to reports.
“When I was near the fire, I could hear it, almost like gunshots,” Sojda told the Observer-Dispatch. “Something clearly exploded.”
Firefighters responded and quickly got the blaze under control.
The local fire chief praised the kids and credited their quick thinking.
“If they didn’t do this, if they didn’t get everyone out and call 911, it may have been three to four minutes before we got there,” Maynard Fire Chief Jared Pearl said. “And by then, the house would have been fully involved.”
Kane said he was able to stay cool under pressure because of the influence of his dad, a police and EMS chief.
“I’ve even been on a few calls with him,” Kane said. “I knew we had to get the family out.”
After the fire was under control, the high schoolers went home, unaware that they would be celebrated as heroes the following Monday.
“It felt good to know we did something good for someone else, but we never expected it to get attention,” Kane said
“We all didn’t think twice, and I’m glad we didn’t,” Sojda told WKTV. “You don’t have a lot of time in those situations.”
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