Recently, an Ohio is being praised after he put his own life on the line to run into a burning building to save an 11-month-old baby earlier this week. 62-year-old John Stickovich repeatedly ran inside the building, battling smoke and flames, to rescue the child.
Reportedly, Stickovich was on his way to work when he noticed a cloud of smoke coming from a home. He quickly sprang into action, jeopardizing his own safety and well-being, before first responders arrived on the scene.
John found a woman sitting outside the home holding a baby in her arms. However, she claimed another one of her children was still trapped inside the building that was becoming progressively more engulfed in flames.
“The mother was sitting on the tree lawn with her one baby and I asked her if she was all right and she said, ‘My baby is still in the house,’” Stickovich explained to WJW-TV. “And I was thinking to myself … ‘I have to save the baby.’”
As John entered the home for the first time, he was unsuccessful at locating the child and was forced to return to the mother empty-handed. Upon asking for further guidance from the woman, he reentered the blazing home. “I came back out and asked her where the baby was, she told me ‘next to the kitchen by the baby gate,’” he said.
Stickovich described how he eventually located the baby as conditions were becoming increasingly perilous. He said, “It was getting so bad in there, I was getting ready to leave actually and then the baby cried or made a sound, so I’m thinking to myself ‘the baby is right here,’ so I just lurched forward and my arm went across his leg. I grabbed him by the leg, [pulled] and then we were both out.”
Community members have praised Stickovich for his selfless act of bravery. CFD spokesman Lt. Mike Norman stated, “He risked his life to bring that baby out, he did an amazing job this morning.” Firefighters noted that, if not for the man’s bravery, the child likely would have succumbed to the fire. See footage of the fire below:
.@ClevelandFire are praising a 62-year-old man who spotted this fire on W 102st & ran in (twice!) to save an 11-month-old twin still inside.
That man told @WEWS "I figured I better try – There's no child that should die in a fire ever."https://t.co/7T4s9WALSy pic.twitter.com/RYMklkN75Z
— Clay LePard (@ClayLePard) May 6, 2024
Reportedly, the inferno was so intense that two firefighters sustained injuries combating the flames. One first responder became trapped under debris when the front porch collapsed. Fortunately, he was rescued by other teammates on the scene.
Lt. Norman added, “They called a mayday on the radio. Whenever we have a mayday, it’s something that we practice for, we a have a rapid intervention team that stands ready to rescue a firefighter in that sort of an event, which they did this morning.”
Stickovich noted that he is grateful he was able to step in and save the day, preventing a mother from suffering the loss of her child. “I feel wonderful that I could save the baby, that mother doesn’t have to mourn her baby, that baby gets to live today,” he said. “Everybody is just calling and saying how great of a job it was, but I mean, I would do it for anybody, it doesn’t matter and I would hope that somebody would do it for me.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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