By Shane Graber
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
GRANITE CITY, Mo. — Joshua Hearn had to keep his eyes closed, but the children’s cries led him to where he needed to be.
Driving home after midnight Wednesday, Hearn, 18, saw smoke coming from a house a few doors from his, one that belonged to friends. He knew three kids were in there, and he had to go in.
“It was like you walked into hell,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “I could feel the heat. It was so hot, I couldn’t even open my eyes a lot of the time.”
Firefighters responded to the fire at 210 Briarwood at about 12:30 a.m. The three who were inside - Chelsea Ricketts, 13; Alexxis Hart, 6; and Zach Hart, 4 - were all at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center Wednesday night in critical condition.
But emergency officials and neighbors said things could have turned out much worse if Hearn had not happened by.
“I can’t say enough about him,” Granite City Fire Chief Tim Connolly said. “He saved the life of two young children is what he did. Plain and simple. These children may have perished in this fire.”
The cause of the fire remains unclear, Connolly said.
Hearn, who turns 19 on Valentine’s Day, told his story reluctantly. Several times in the course of the interview, he insisted that he did nothing extraordinary. Plus, he had some help from his cell phone, too.
“I was going to call 911, but I looked down and my battery was dead,” he said. “I knew there wasn’t much time.”
Schae Ricketts had been screaming for help when Hearn pulled up. Schae, 15, is the oldest sister of the house. The two ran around to the back of the house, where Schae boosted Hearn in through a window. Inside, Hearn found Alexxis on the floor. He picked her up and dropped her out the window.
Hearn then heard Zach crying, and with eyes closed, he followed the voice through stifling waves of heat and scooped up the boy. By then, neighbor Greg Chism, 36, had come to help. Hearn handed the boy to Chism.
Chism said he had seen Hearn go into the house.
“I don’t know who that boy was, but he jumped right in the window and started handing the kids right out while everyone else was trying to figure out what was going on,” Chism said. “He did a good job.”
After handing Zach to Chism, Hearn went to look for Chelsea. By then, though, the house had become filled with smoke, and the flames were spreading wildly. Firefighters arrived, and Chism said he convinced Hearn to exit the house.
Chism went around and kicked in the front door, he said. But the front room was filled with flames to the ceiling, so he tried a door by the driveway. Inside, Chelsea was on the floor.
“I guess she tried to come out the kitchen way,” Chism said.
He and a police officer pulled out Chelsea. Paramedics took the three children to Gateway Regional Medical Center. They were later transferred to St. John’s.
Schae went to school Wednesday to pick up books, friend Tabitha Robinson said. Schae told Tabitha that Joshua had saved her family.
“If Josh hadn’t come, they might all be dead,” said Tabitha, 14.
Many neighbors in the small subdivision weren’t all that surprised by Hearn’s actions. He’s just that kind of guy, people said.
Hearn, who speaks calmly and comfortably like he’s known you a while, was treated and released at Gateway for smoke inhalation. He got home about 5:30 a.m. and spent a lot of Wednesday coughing up black gunk and worrying about the kids.
“It’s just one of those things that you want to think somebody would do the same thing for you,” he said. “You hear kids crying, you can’t just sit there and wait.”
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