North Texas firefighters save 2-year-old from apartment blaze
GRANBURY — Sunday morning, firefighters from several local departments rushed to the scene of a massive apartment fire in Granbury only to find a two-year-old trapped inside, his mother pleading with first responders to pull him from the blaze. And it was all caught on camera.
Volunteer firefighters of the Granbury Fire Department rushed to an apartment complex early Sunday morning to find heavy flames shooting out of this apartment building
"About 12:50-1:00 this morning I heard glass breaking," said mom Phylicia Keen. "And I go into the living room and walked down the hallway and it was actually my windows breaking from flames from my balcony."
Keen grabbed her 4-year-old son but couldn't reach her two-year-old, Liam Keen.
"Unfortunately, I was only able to grab the closest one to me to get out, by the time I came back to get the baby the whole living room hallway was engulfed in black smoke," Keen said.
Within minutes firefighters were on scene. They grabbed a ladder and rushed to the side of the building where Liam was.
"At that time, the sprinklers were going off," said North Hood County Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Jonathan Head, who swung the ax to break the window and pull Liam to safety. "Whenever I broke into the window and I climbed in, there was a lot of questions, but you couldn't see nothing."
Granbury Volunteer firefighter Brian Serratelli anchored the ladder.
"Hectic, it's pretty hectic," said Serratelli. "Not knowing exactly where he was in the room, but he was in that second-floor window."
Head got a breakthrough in the darkness. Liam's crying was almost like a GPS.
"I was just going by his voice," Head said. "Every time he cried, that's where I went. I brushed up against him and he let out a scream. So I knew I was on him. I picked him up out of pure excitement—that he was actually moving around ... obviously crying is a good sign."
"What goes through our head—as firefighters is it gonna be the same outcome that we see 80% of the time," said Bradley Snyder, Granbury Fire Captain. "But not this time. Just a few moments later, they manage to pull Liam through the window alive... I've been doing this for 22 years and this is literally the first time I saw it go the right way."
"Them telling me that he was crying was probably the best moment of my life because, at one time, just a couple seconds before, I thought my baby was dead," Keen said.
Liam was careflighted to Cook Children's Hospital in Fort Worth with carbon monoxide poisoning. Now he's back in Keen's arms, where he belongs. The family has lost so much, but they still have each other thanks to the bravery of the firefighters that day.
"They are amazing heroes," said Keen. "Angels don't get recognized enough. They hit the ground running and they didn't stop."
