New Jersey Child Rescued by Officer During House Fire
An 8-year-old child escaped a house fire in Asbury Park by leaping from a second-floor window into the arms of a police officer, who caught him during an emergency rescue. The child is recovering, and the incident highlights the critical role of rapid response and bravery in such situations.
Officer Dewitt Bacon, 33, heard the child crying for help in the early morning hours and recounted the rescue during a press conference the day after the fire. ‘I run to the back window, try to get eyes on him, and yell to him to get the window,’ he said, according to the Asbury Park Press. ‘The fire is going, it’s smoking, just break it out. Break the window as fast as you can and try to get through.’ The child’s mother rushed home from work during the emergency, the paper reported.
Local residents, Officer Bacon and another Asbury, NJ, police officer, John Walsh, were recognized for their role in the rescue at a press conference held at city hall the next day. ‘As APFD members were arriving with just nine firefighters on duty — a Battalion Chief, truck company, engine company, and ambulance — Asbury Park Police Officers Walsh and Bacon acted decisively, rescuing a child trapped inside by catching him as he leapt from a second-floor window,’ the Asbury Park Firefighters Union wrote on its Facebook page.
Photos shared from the scene by the firefighters union show heavy, red flames and thick, black smoke billowing from the home. The cause of the fire remains under investigation by police and two local fire departments.