Just an ordinary dude who did an extraordinary thing.
According to Global News, 25-year-old Nicholas Bostic was going about his day and delivering pizzas in Lafayette, Indiana, when he noticed a house engulfed in flames on one of his routes on July 11.
Most people wouldn’t have the nerve to do anything more than call 911, but Bostic took matters into his own hands once he realized he didn’t have his phone on him, and went into the flaming house to see if there was anybody entrapped.
Police say that he entered through the backdoor, and called out to see if anybody was inside, but received no reply.
They said he:
“Contemplated the possibility that everyone had already evacuated. Not taking the chance that someone could still be inside, he decided to go in.”
Sure enough, he discovered two kids and three teenagers inside the house, and successfully retrieved them and escorted them out to safety by jumping through a window that he punched out with his bare hand.
The ages of the individuals trapped inside the house ranged from a one-year-old baby to an 18-year old, with one being 13-year-old Shaylee Barrett, who told the Purdue Exponent:
“For a minute I didn’t understand it, but my sister ran upstairs with the baby in her hands and yelling at us to get up because there’s a fire.
And for a minute I froze and I laid there because I was confused. That’s when we went downstairs and Nick was downstairs helping us.”
Bostic helped the four individuals escape, but he learned there was a six-year-old still trapped inside, and police say he ran back inside to save the child as well.
The pizza delivery guy turned hero suffered from severe smoke inhalation, as well as a deep cut to his hand punching out the window, but has since made a full recovery at the hospital.
He described the scene as a “black lagoon” of smoke, and he had to crawl on the floor and feel around to figure out how to navigate through the house. He also told police that he was conflicted about if he could get the last child out, but knew he couldn’t stop there, even though he described it as “walking into an oven.”
Bostic told Dave Bangert in an interview that he felt a “weird calm:”
“I don’t know how to explain it, but it was like I accepted I was going to probably die, right there, that night.”
Police say that after saving the six-year-old, who went uninjured, Bostic ran to medical staff gasping for air and begging for oxygen. A Go Fund Me has been started for Nick who was hospitalized for days, racking up quite the bill.
The Lafayette Fire Department say they believe the fire started from a bucket of ashes on the porch that wasn’t fully extinguished.
Nick Bostic ladies and gentleman… a man among men.
We need more like him…
