Firefighters do what few do – they race headfirst into the danger. And for one family, their bravery made all the difference.
A massive fire broke out in a Granbury, Texas, apartment, and left a mother racing to save her children. Phylicia Keen was asleep, she said, when she heard glass breaking. The family’s home was on the second story, and she ran into the living room. It was there that she saw the flames.
“About 12:50-1:00 this morning I heard glass breaking,” Keen said. “And I go into the living room and walked down the hallway and it was actually my windows breaking from flames from my balcony.” She grabbed her four-year-old son, but the fire prevented her from being able to get to her two-year-old son, Liam.
The aftermath of an apartment fire. Photo courtesy of Granbury Volunteer Fire Department
“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.
Firefighters had already arrived, and Keen told them about Liam. They raced into action. Putting a ladder up to the second-story window, they began racing up it. “At that time, the sprinklers were going off,” said North Hood County Volunteer Fire Department Lt. Jonathan Head, who used his axe to break the window and get into the apartment.
Whenever I broke into the window and I climbed in, there was a lot of questions, but you couldn’t see nothing.”
It was a chaotic mess, full of smoke and the firefighters were desperate to find the child. “Hectic, it’s pretty hectic,” Granbury Volunteer firefighter Brian Serratelli said. “Not knowing exactly where he was in the room, but he was in that second-floor window.”
Liam Keen snuggles with his mom. Photo by CBS
But it was little Liam who helped them find their way. His crying, Head said, was like 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.”
For the firefighters, this was a moment they won’t forget. “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 taken to a hospital and treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. He is home now, with his family. They have lost so much, Keen said, but thanks to the firefighters, they didn’t lose the most important thing – each other. “They are amazing heroes,” she said. “Angels don’t get recognized enough. They hit the ground running and they didn’t stop.”
