Brady M. Pratt

Brady M. Pratt saved two girls from burning, Petronila, Texas, December 20, 2020. The girls, ages 1 and 8, were rear passengers in a sport utility vehicle that was involved in a highway accident in which a sedan struck the SUV head-on. Both vehicles left the highway and came to rest in a field. The sedan caught fire, which spread to the SUV’s adjacent front end. Pratt, 35, border patrol agent, was driving nearby and came upon the wreckage. Pratt parked his vehicle and ran across the highway to the field and approached the SUV. Alerted there were children inside, Pratt approached the rear of the vehicle to the broken-out rear windshield, then saw the two girls inside. Despite front-end flames and heavy smoke inside the vehicle, Pratt fully entered through the rear windshield opening and first approached the 8-year-old girl and unlatched her belt, but she alerted Pratt that she was injured and told him to first remove the 1-year-old girl. Pratt moved to the driver’s side and reached over the rear seat to access the 1-year-old girl’s car seat, while struggling to breathe due to the smoke. Pratt unbuckled the car seat safety harness and lifted the girl out of the seat. With the girl in tow, he backed toward the SUV’s rear, where he handed her to a woman outside. Pratt approached the 8-year-old girl, but realizing her leg injury would make it difficult to remove her over the back seat and out through the rear window, Pratt backed out of the vehicle. Exiting through the rear windshield, Pratt approached the rear, passenger-side window. A man there broke out the window glass with a golf club, after which Pratt pulled the remaining glass from the door frame before extending his upper body inside. Grasping the girl under her arms, Pratt pulled her toward his body as he backed through the window opening. He then carried her about 30 feet from the vehicle, where others tended to her. Pratt returned to the vehicle, climbed onto the roof, and extended his arm inside through the broken-out sunroof and checked the pulses of the driver and front passenger, but he found they had both died. Pratt retreated to safety. The 8-year-old suffered a broken leg. Pratt was not injured.