Two young boys saved from house fire by a pair of Vidor officers
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A pair of Vidor Police officers are being credited with saving two children from a blazing house fire early Tuesday morning.
After the fire was reported at 1:49 a.m., two Vidor officers were the first to arrive at the fire, in the 900 block of Pin Oak St., according to Vidor Police Chief Rod Carroll.
Carroll referred to the officers as heroes and commended them for saving the lives of the two boys, who are 7 and 9-years-old.
When they arrived at the fire, they boys' mother told officers Michael Stephenson and Ashton Moss that her children were still in the front bedroom of the mobile home, which was "fully engulfed" with flames, according to Carroll.
Stephenson's bodycam video shows him running from his patrol car toward the mobile, which is engulfed in flames on one side.
"Is everybody out," he asks the mom, who is standing in front of the structure.
"No, there are two kids in there," she yells, pointing to a small front window near the porch.
"When I got there, I saw everything was just one big ball of fire. I saw him [Stephenson] try to open the window, so I just ran over to him," Moss said.
In the video, Stephenson then rushes to the window and begins struggling to remove an air conditioner, taking just 21 seconds before he manages to shove it into the darkened room.
"She told me it was screwed shut. I couldn't hear them. The fire was loud. It was right there. So we were just trying to get that open because that was our only way in," Stephenson said.
"Come on, our guys," he yells into the room.
Within seconds, illuminated by the orange glow of flames and the officer's flashlights, the 9-year-old and then the 7-year-old boy emerge from the window.
"Come on, come on," the officers can be heard telling the boys as they pull them to safety.
It takes a total of only 34 seconds for Stevenson, with the help of Moss, to get both boys out of the burning home.
Before leaving the window, both officers can be heard calling out "How many more, how many more."
"Luckily the kids were right there just inside the window, so we were able to pull them out and rush them out to the road," Moss said.
Once they are sure everyone is out, they run over to the boys and their mom next to a patrol car at the end of the driveway.
The officers begin asking the boys if they are ok and if they can breathe.
In the video, the shirtless 9-year-old walks up to Stephenson, "Thank you for saving me."
"I know I bumped your head, but you're all ok, right," Stevenson asks him as he rubs his head.
"Yes, sir. I don't care about that," the boy responds.
Less than a minute after the officers got the kids out of the burning home, the room was engulfed with flames that could be seen coming through the windows, Carroll said.
As the sirens of the approaching fire trucks wail in the distance, the officers put the boys into the patrol car before Stevenson's bodycam video capture the sound of his breath as walks away, catching his breath.
As a father of two, Stephenson says his instincts kicked in.
"As a parent, you just want what's best for your kids all the time. They were good once they got out to the road," he said.
"You definitely think about your kids in times like that, and you'd want to save them by any means necessary," said Moss.
Orange County ESD One firefighters arrived about two minutes after the officers got the kids out, according to a Facebook post from the fire department.
"We would like to thank the PD officers that saved these children, without their quick response and disregard for their own safety, these children may have perished in the blaze," the fire department said in the Facebook post.
Because the door to the bedroom the boys were in was closed, they were kept from being overcome by smoke, heat and toxic gasses during the fire, according to the fire department.
The two boys were taken by ambulance to Christus St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, where they were treated for smoke inhalation and then released.
While the family is safe, they lost everything in the fire. Vidor police are now trying to help raise money to help with basic needs.