He was just on his way to get some gas at about midnight when he saw the house engulfed in flames. He hit the brakes on his car, turned around, and pulled into the driveway. He didn’t have a phone, so he couldn’t call 911.
Nick Bostic, age 25, took matters into his own hands. He didn’t know if anyone was in the house, so he ran to the back and found an unlocked door, and rushed inside.
Surrounding by smoke, Bostic shouted, “Anybody here? Get out! Get out! Fire!”
Just as he was about to leave the house, he saw a teenager at the top of the stairs holding younger children.
Sieonna Barrett, 18, was babysitting her three younger siblings and her sister’s friend. Her parents were out on a date. She smelled the smoke and was frantically trying to wake everybody up and get them out of the house when Bostic busted through the back door of the house.
The young soon-to-be hero herded everyone outside and the Seionna told him the baby wasn’t there. She was talking about a six-year-old girl named Kaylani. They called her “Baby K,” and she was still in the burning house.
“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,” Bostic said.
The staircase was consumed with smoke and the heat was relentless. Nick said he hesitated for just a moment and then lunged down the stairs thinking, “I don’t want to die here.”
Holding his breath, he followed the faint cry in darkness until he found Baby K and wrapped his arms around her.
“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.”
He broke open a window with his right hand, wrapped the girl up with his left arm, and jumped from the second story to the ground. He landed on his right side to protect the girl.
“I can barely breathe,” Bostic said on a video. He asks: “Is the baby OK? Please tell me the baby’s OK.”
Nick Bostic had saved five lives in under 15 minutes.
Lt. Randy Shere of the Lafayette, Indiana Police Department said that Bostic’s selflessness during the fire was inspiring.
Bostic is a pizza maker for a Papa John’s franchise. He is not looking for praise and told the police officer that he was just an ordinary guy.
Officer Sherer responded, “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.”
The parents of the children, David, and Tiera Barrett rushed home to find it engulfed in flames, but their children were alive. Baby K was in an ambulance with minor injuries, and Bostic was sent by ambulance to a hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and first-degree burns on his back, right ankle, and right arm.
By the time the first responders made it to the scene Seionna; Shaylee, 13; Kaleia, 1, and Shaylee’s friend, Livian Knifley, 13, were safely out of the house. They were traumatized but unharmed, according to David Barrett.
“We feel very blessed for what Nick did. He’s a real hero, and my daughter’s a real hero for waking the kids up. I don’t like to think about what might have happened if Nick hadn’t shown up. I’m grateful beyond words,” Barrett said.
