Sleeping nanny heard loud thud at dawn—her daring sacrifice rescued 5-year-old from fatality
Many caregivers go above and beyond to safeguard the kids in their care. A nanny did just that when she put her own life in danger to save her 5-year-old charge, Aden Hawes, from a house fire. The woman was sleeping when the incident happened and she saw that the kid's room was surrounded by fire by the time she reached there and there was no way to pass through the door of his room. Then the nanny, Alyson Myatt, rushed in to save him without thinking about anything, per TODAY.com.
Myatt woke up in the morning that day and noticed that the carpet in front of Aden's door was burning. The boy was trapped inside his room and could have been in danger, according to the fire department, if Myatt hadn't intervened. A fire broke out in an overheated ventilation fan in the bathroom at 3 AM one morning. Myatt informed JB Hawes, the boy's dad, a single parent, about the incident after she had extinguished the fire. Both of them felt that the problem had been solved until Myatt woke up because of a loud thud and blaring smoke alarms at 6 AM. The fan had caught fire again and had fallen from the ceiling. The nanny rushed to check what the commotion was all about.
"I just saw flames all down the hallway and the bathroom door was on fire, because I hadn’t shut the bathroom door before this big fire, so there was no way to avoid the flames," Myatt recounted. "But before I had even looked at the fire or anything, I was yelling for Aden. He said he was in his room underneath the covers." The 22-year-old ran through the burning carpet with bare feet to get to the boy. "I didn’t even think about me getting hurt or getting burned. I really didn’t even think that I was barefoot. I was just yelling for Aden and I ran and got him. All of it happened really quickly." She only realized that she was in unbearable pain after she got off the carpet.
The flames were advancing and the two still had to get to a safe place at that time. "We just went down the steps. I just grabbed my purse. I was thinking, 'Oh, man, I dropped my cell phone. Now I can’t call anybody.' I jumped in the minivan, got Aden in and whatnot and went to Lucy’s house, a neighbor down the street." She pressed the pedals with her toes and told Aden to rush to the neighbor's door and call for help. The fire department shared that even a minute's delay in the rescue could have been fatal for the boy. His dad, who was on a business trip at that time, was beyond grateful to Myatt. "To realize what she did, saved my son’s life, you can’t thank someone for that. There’s nothing you can do to repay them for taking that kind of a risk," Hawes expressed.
The dad came back to visit Myatt at the hospital and was in disbelief over what she had done to save his son. Although a huge part of the house was charred, the dad was still grateful that his son was safe. Myatt might have needed skin grafts on her feet and didn't have health insurance, so she didn't know how she would pay her medical bills at that time. In the meantime, Hawes had to look for a place to live that could comfortably house the three of them. "Alyson is part of the family. I know that she’s got her family to go to, but I’ve got to find another place so that she can come home." Myatt and Aden had an emotional reunion some time after the incident, per WLWT.