Usually when you get a group of teenagers together, you expect there to be some sort of goofing off, playing around to happen. Afterall, that is what that age is for – running around and having fun. But for four Oklahoma teenagers, being bored ended up helping them become heroes.
Sixteen-year-old Seth Byrd, 17-year-old Wyatt Hall, 16-year-old Dylan Wick and 14-year-old Nick Byrd. had been looking for something to do one evening recently. The teens had finally settled on running to a local convenience store for drinks, when, Byrd said they smelled fire.
It smelled kind of like burning rubber. Then, we heard the house alarm go off,” Wick said.
For 90-year-old Catherine Ritchie, that moment saved her. Ritchie, who had lived in her home for more than 58 years, had been getting ready for bed. She said, “I was getting ready for bed in the bathroom, and I turned around, and my bed, the head of my bed, was covered in flames.”
Ritchie used blankets and pillows to try and smother the fire and put it out. But the smoke and heat made it too difficult, so she backed off. Pressing the emergency button on her necklace to summon help, she also called 911.
As smoke filled her room, Ritchie said she looked for a way out, but she struggled to find her way. Thinking her closet door was the exit, she found herself stuck for a moment, unable to find her way out. “I felt along the wall, and I went into the closet instead of the door to get out of the room. I finally did get to the door,” she said.
90-year-old Catherine Ritchie, center, poses with the four teenagers who helped save her from a house fire. Photo from KTUL
It was then that Byrd, Wick, and their two friends broke in through the back door and found Ritchie in her hallway. “I just kind of heard her,” Byrd said. “I went to the right of the house, and no one was there. I went to the left of the house, and I saw her in the hallway, so I just grabbed her and took her to Seth.”
This young boy was right there,” Ritchie said. “He picked me up, and I said, ‘I can walk,’ and he said, ‘We’re getting out of here.'”
Ritchie made it out safely. So did the boys, and firefighters stopped the flames before they spread. The following day, the teenagers returned to the scene. “Ever since that night, my life has just changed … for the better,” Hall said, as he looked at the burned mattress that was left behind in Ritchie’s room.
A burned mattress was all that was left of Catherine Ritchie’s bedroom after a fire blazed through the room. Photo from YouTube
For Ritchie, those young men left her with only one word to describe how she felt – grateful. “That’s what I have to think,” she said. “They were just special, as young as they were.” “Not an adult in sight,” Missy Nicholas, Ritchie’s daughter, wrote in a blog post. “4 kids who took immediate action to save an elderly woman who they couldn’t guarantee was home and who 3 of them had never even met.”
“Kids who are told about all the things they aren’t old enough to do, saved the life of the most precious and beloved woman we know,” she wrote.
Thank you for your selfless acts of heroism and courage. Thank you for not allowing this to be the tragic end to our mother’s amazing life. Thank you for staying with her, hugging her, and helping her feel less alone until we could get to her,” Nicholas wrote.
Nicholas signed the blog on behalf of all of her mother’s 10 children and 42 grandchildren. Watch the heroic story below. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section, as well.
