Nick Bostic is a hero in every sense of the word. He put himself in mortal danger and seriously injured himself in the process in order to save the lives of five complete strangers.
Bostic, a 25-year-old pizza delivery man, had just gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and took a ride to clear his head.
He was on his way to get gas when he came across a two-story home in Lafayette, Ind. that was engulfed in flames.
He immediately rushed into the home since he left his phone and couldn’t call 911 first.
“It was adrenaline. I hightailed my butt into the house,” he told ABC 7.
Parents David and Tiera Barrett were out having a date night while their 18-year-old daughter looked after their 13-year-old, her friend of the same age, and their 6 and 1-year-old.
The 18-year-old was able to call her parents and tell them the house was on fire and that she grabbed her baby sister.
“We dropped everything we were doing and took off running,” David Barrett said.
Thankfully, the back door was open which enabled Bostic to get inside. He almost left thinking no one was home when he spotted the 18-year-old at the top of the stairs with the younger children.
The older teen told him that they couldn’t find the 6-year-old.
Bostic made sure the other kids and the teen got out of the house before searching for the 6-year-old.
He said he couldn’t see because of the thick smoke and used his ears to find the child.
Here’s the video to go along with the story. pic.twitter.com/TvZ5wzCg1f
— LafayetteINPolice (@LafayetteINPD) July 15, 2022
“I ran inside and looked under beds and closets, but I couldn’t find her,” Bostic told The Washington Post.. “But when I got to the stairs that led downstairs, I heard some faint crying.”
The staircase was overwhelmed with smoke and intense heat.
“I thought, ‘I don’t want to die here,’ ” Bostic said.
Still, he held his breath, ran down the stairs anyway, and walked through the darkness until he found the girl.
“I rolled her up in my arm like a football, then felt my way back up the stairs,” Bostic said. “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 smashed the window open with his fist and jumped two stories with the girl tightly wrapped around his left side.
He fell on his right side in order to prevent the child from being injured.
The Barretts, who pretty much lost everything in the fire, said the only thing left in their living room was a sign that read “love.” But that’s all David Barrett says he feels right now and is exceedingly grateful for Bostic’s actions.
“God uses the most unlikely characters. He sent an angel,” David said.
Bostic, sustained an arm injury and other wounds and suffered smoke inhalation.
A GoFundMe account was started to pay for hospital and other bills and has so far raised over $565,000 of its $100,000 goal. There is also one set up for the Barrets which have raised almost $25,000 of its $100,000 goal.
But Bostic doesn’t see himself as a hero and says he was just doing what he hoped another person would do for him.
“What he doesn’t understand is his actions weren’t ordinary, they were extraordinary,” Lt. Randy Sherer of the Lafayette Police Department said. “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.”
Watch the police footage from that night in the video below!
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Here’s the video to go along with the story. pic.twitter.com/TvZ5wzCg1f
— LafayetteINPolice (@LafayetteINPD) July 15, 2022
