Teens Save Autistic Children as Flames Engulf Home While Mother Sleeps
Dallas, Texas, resident Drew Timme is used to being a hero on the basketball court.
Plug the J.J. Pearce High student’s name into YouTube, and you’ll find yourself deluged with videos of the 6’11” junior’s daring b-ball skills.
But on March 3, he and a group of his fellow classmates got to put their heroism into very practical action.
Drew, his brother Walker, and friends Bryce Johnson and Will Newberry were driving home after a J.J. Pearce playoff victory when they saw something shocking.
“The whole road was covered in smoke, you could barely see what was in front of me,” Drew told KDFW.
“We knew something was bad, and we could kind of see orange flickering from what looked like the house.”
Someone quickly dialed 911, and then the group cautiously began to approach the burning residence. They first thing Drew saw was a child at the front door “just kind of walking back and forth.”
Drew said that the child and others in the home had autism. Unable to process what was happening, the youngster had confusedly milled about the home, unsure how to respond.
Drew started banging on the door and yelling, which roused the kid’s sleeping mother who had no idea her house had burst into flames. When the woman opened up, the students burst into action.
“I went in there and grabbed the kid, and … Bryce was up there with me too, because he was just getting the address from one of the kids who came out,” Drew said to NBC DFW. There was one person missing, though: the father.
Will ran around the back of the house and discovered the father was trying to put out the blaze with a garden hose.
He then got him clear and directed emergency responders in as the other three teens got the family and their pets to safety.
All of the family members survived. First responders believed the fire had started due to an electrical short.
“It was a great night for us as a community, as a school,” JJ Pearce basketball Coach Marc Johnson said. “(I’m) proud of those guys for how they played basketball, but more proud of the people they are and the kids they are.”
Bryce, though, thought the group’s actions were only common sense, saying, “It was just a natural instinct. That’s what other people would do for us as well.”
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