When the phrase “not all heroes wear capes” is tossed around, it’s generally applied to those who have sworn a duty to help and serve but don’t wear the attire that you’d associate with a superhero. Sometimes it goes beyond that. Sometimes someone steps up to do something that isn’t even even remotely what their job is supposed to be. They act out of a sense of believing that this is the right thing to do, no matter who they are. On July 11th, that person is pizza delivery man Nicholas Bostic.
25 year-old Bostic works as a pizza delivery man. Though based on his actions, he should more appropriately be labeled as a hero. At around 12:30 am on the morning of July 11th, the Lafayette resident was passing by a house in the neighborhood, and noticed two distressing things. The first and most obvious- the house was completely enveloped in flames. The second was that there were no emergency response vehicles at the scene.
The Lafayette Police Department released an official statement about what happened next, but we’ll summarize it for you as well.
No family members were outside the house either. To Bostic this didn’t seem right, either everyone was out of the home at a little past midnight on a Monday, or there were people inside who hadn’t left the building. Concerned about the latter explanation, Bostic found a backdoor entrance, opened it and began screaming inside that the house was on fire. After no response, he trusted his instincts that something wasn’t right and entered into the burning building. He went upstairs to find four people, young kids and an older teenager, roused out of sleep by his yelling.
He immediately helped the four kids out of the burning home and onto the lawn. That’s when Bostic was informed that there was a six year-old child still inside. By this time the house was even further engulfed and the likelihood that the child would be alive was severely diminished. So too would the likelihood of Bostic emerging alive if he went back in. And yet, that’s exactly what he did.
Storming back inside he returned upstairs to see if he could find the remaining child near where the rest of the kids were, but there was no sign of them. He started to make his way downstairs but was blocked by extremely thick, black smoke. As he turned to try and retreat back upstairs, that’s when he heard a child crying from back down the stairwell. His only choice was to warp his shirt around his face to try and filter out the smoke and go back in after the child.
Somehow he was able to find her, but there were two problems now. Not knowing the layout of the home, he was unable to find his way to the backdoor entrance he had previously accessed. Additionally, the smoke was so thick that he couldn’t try to navigate there. He could however, find his way back to the second floor via the staircase he had descended. So with the child in his arms he ascended the stairs again and made the decision to punch out the window and leap from it onto the lawn below.
He landed on his side to protect the child from the impact and the end result was her being virtually unharmed by either the fall or the fire. Bostic, on the other hand, received a deep laceration to his arm and suffered from smoke inhalation. Sadly, Bostic has to pay for the medical bills he received for his heroic actions. A GoFundMe was set-up for him which has, at the time of this writing, raised $300,000 for him. An update on the page also indicates that he is feeling better, and in good spirits. Here’s hoping he makes a full recovery.
It’s an amazing tale of self-sacrifice and heroism. He showed a form of courage we wish others could have, including those in positions of authority. He stepped up to save lives when it was needed.
