9-Year-Old Boy Awarded Citizens Medal Of Honor, Saved Grandparents From House Fire
BALTIMORE COUNTY (WJZ) -- The Baltimore County Fire Department honored a 9-year-old boy who saved his grandparents from a house fire in May.
D.J. Goodman is now the youngest recipient of the Citizen Medal of Honor from the Baltimore County Fire Department.
Goodman was the only one awake when a fire broke out in his grandparent's house on Charleswood Court.
"It was my grandmother's birthday," he said. "I was making her breakfast, and then I smelled smoke and then when the flames went up I went in the room and called them up."
Goodman said he remembered what he learned in school about fire safety and dropped to the floor to crawl into his grandparent's room.
His grandmother said she was in shock when she saw the flames.
"Behind the sofa, there's a socket," Barbra Wilson, Goodman's grandmother, said. "The flames were just shooting up the wall all up the back of the sofa. Before I knew it, the whole sofa was just gone."
When firefighters arrived, the house was filled with thick smoke. The upstairs of the house was a total loss.
Goodman's grandmother said he saved their lives.
"He saved our lives that morning," Wilson said. "He really did."
Tuesday night the Baltimore County Fire Department presented Goodman with the Citizens Medal of Honor and called his actions heroic.
"Most kids would run from danger and fire," Jennifer Aubert, Acting Fire Chief of Baltimore County Fire Department, said. "For him to go in, that was very courageous and we're very proud of D.J. for what he did."
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