A young boy saved his family from fire by waking up the elders in the middle of the night, who lost their sense of smell due to Covid-19.
Nathan, 33, and Kayla Dahl, 28, were asleep at 4:30 am when a blaze of fire broke out in their house. The fire alarms in their home did not go off, and they did not wake to the smell of smoke, the couple lost their sense of smell and taste due to the infection of COVID-19.
Their son Brandon, 2, who had been sleeping in the living room, awakened to the smoke and flames and get his mother to wake up.
Kayla said: “He tapped me on my feet in bed and was coughing and saying, “Mama hot, Mama, hot”. When I opened my eyes and looked at him, it was really hazy with smoke.”
“When it comes to him getting to us, the only thing that we can chalk it up to is the fact that God had his arms wrapped around him,” she added.
She said: “He had a guardian angel that helped protect him and carry him into our room that morning. I turned around. I looked and all I saw was flames in the doorway.”
Nathan and Kayla woke up quickly and got their five children out of their burning house with nothing but the clothes they were wearing. She is screaming, “Fire, fire, fire.”
Nathan said: “My initial thought was, “OK, I’m going to get up and I’m going to get to work”. We had seconds. It’s nothing short of a miracle.”
Nathan, a volunteer firefighter for six years, already taught his children what to do in the event of a fire, in particular not touch anything while trying to escape. He said that none of the smoke alarms in their home in Alvord, Texas sounded.
He shared: “We had brand new, less than a year old, smoke alarms in our house. None of them went off.”
Once they are outside, the family watched the flames destroy their home, as well as their two cars. Kayla said that once she saw that they were out and safe at a neighbor’s house, she felt relief wash over her, knowing that her family was unhurt.
Kayla explained: “Until I turned around and saw everything that we had worked so hard to build as a family just gone. It was a cold and windy morning, with gusts up to 70 miles per hour, which made the fire even more dangerous.”
Nathan said: “About maybe a minute after we got out of the house, our front door had flames coming out of it, everything was in flames.”
Both Kayla and Nathan had lost their sense of smell after testing positive for Covid-19. The family says that they think the fire was caused by a gas heater in the living room.
Kayla has grieved everything that was gone inside her home. But she was grateful for her young son’s heroic act. Kayla said: “Brandon saved us. He saved our entire family. I mean, he’s our little mini hero. He’s an amazing little boy.”
“I believe that he will do amazing things as he gets older. We can only hope that he’ll follow in his (dad’s) footsteps one day and become a little firefighter himself,” she added.
She wants anyone who hears her family’s story to know the importance of always having a safety plan and teaching it to children, too. Fortunately, no one was injured, though Brandon had some slightly singed hair on his head. Kayla and Nathan credit the little boy with saving their lives.