A teenager is getting the hero treatment from his Vancouver, Wash. community after he saved a toddler from a two-story fall on Sunday.
The local sheriff’s department said the 18-month-old boy was supposed to be napping along with a 2-year-old boy when the children wondered through a damaged screen door in their apartment. The screen door led the children to the second-floor roof, where the 2-year-old then slipped and fell about 20 feet on to a soft flower bed.
Neighbor Corrine Sims told KATU-TV in Portland: “I just saw this flash of white kind of fall and next thing I know I’m looking across the field and there’s a little baby on the ground. He had his face covered in dirt, mouth full of dirt and scratches on his body.”
Damon Davenport, 13, was in the middle of an afternoon football game with his friends when he heard a thud from the fallen 2-year-old, who happened to be his brother. Davenport looked toward the building and saw that the younger boy was still on the rooftop. That’s when the teen knew he had to act quickly.
“I ran up there and then I seen the baby crying and crawling up the roof at the same time, so I opened the window and bashed down the screen and grabbed the baby by its arms,” Davenport told KABC-TV.
According to KATU-TV, Davenport broke through the screen door and climbed on to the roof to save the child.
The local fire department plans to give Davenport an award for his deed. Neither of the children was seriously hurt from the episode.