In Alarming Display of Toxic Masculinity, Four Teen Boys Save Elderly Oklahoma Woman From Fire

A mother of 10 and grandmother to 42 is safe today after the heroic actions of four teenage boys who came to her rescue in Oklahoma.

Fox News reports:

Catherine Ritchie was in her bathroom getting ready for bed last month when she noticed the bed’s headboard was engulfed in flames.

Ritchie said she tried to put the fire out by throwing blankets and pillows on the flames, but the smoke grew so thick that she was soon disoriented in the home in Sapulpa, where she’d lived for 58 years.

She called 911 and hit her emergency call button, but she managed to get only to the hallway before losing her way in the smoke again.

That is when the four boys, Dylan Wick, 16, Nick Byrd, 14, Seth Byrd, 16, and Wyatt Hall, 17, came to her aid. They were across the street when the fire broke out.

According to KTUL, it was Nick Byrd who carried Ritchie out to safety:

Nick Byrd, 14, managed to get through the back door and ran inside, finding Ritchie in the hall, lost in the smoke.

“This young boy was right there,” she said. “He picked me up, and I said, ‘I can walk,’ and he said, ‘We’re getting out of here.’”

“I just kind of heard her,” said Nick Byrd “I went to the right of the house, and no one was there. I went to the left of the house, and I saw her in the hallway, so I just grabbed her and took her to Seth.”

Ritchie made it out safe. So did the boys, and firefighters stopped the flames before they spread.

Watch a video report on Ms. Ritchie and the four teens who saved her below:

Missy Ritchie Nicholas, one of Catherine Ritchie’s daughters, thanked the boys on behalf of her entire family in a blog post:

Kids who are told about all the things they aren’t old enough to do saved the life of the most precious and beloved woman we know. Courageous young men. Young men who risked their own lives, their own safety, perhaps their good standing with their parents who might have chosen for them to do otherwise, and they carried my mother out of her burning home into the street, where firetrucks and ambulances would soon arrive.

[…]

Thank you for being the kind of young men who thought about another person above yourselves. Thank you for staying safe yourselves as well. Thank you to your parents who obviously raised you in such a way that lead to you making life saving and heroic decisions on behalf of someone else. Thank you for more than we know how to thank you for! We will forever be indebted to the time you bought for us and the example you set for us. God Bless each of you for being such a blessing to us.

Amen.

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—Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter.–

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