I. W. Washington, Jr., 18, schoolboy, saved Lonnie Hutchinson, 9, schoolboy, and five younger children from suffocation, Houston, Texas, June 15, 1957. At night while Lonnie and his brother were asleep in the front room of a ground-floor apartment in a frame building, fire broke out in a vacant room on the second floor. Washington was attracted and roused persons living in the other first-floor rooms. They told Washington that there were children in the Hutchinson apartment. Unable to force open the locked door, Washington broke a window in the front room and crawled inside. The room already contained smoke, and heat was noticeable. Washington caught Lonnie and his brother, who were running about the room in panic, and tried unsuccessfully to open the door from the inside. He then carried the boys to the window and through it to the outside. Learning soon afterward that Lonnie’s two sisters still were inside, Washington re-entered the apartment through the window. Heat and smoke had increased, but he found the girls asleep in the adjoining bedroom and awakened them. Frightened, they fought Washington as he carried them to the front window and through it to the outside. Informed that two other boys also were inside, Washington once more entered the apartment. By then visibility was negligible, and heat was intense. Washington several times collided with furniture and fell as he made his way through three rooms to the rear bedroom. He fell again but crawled to the bed and found the boys. Coughing and gasping, Washington carried the boys through the smoke-filled rooms to the front window. After lifting them through the opening, Washington fell unconscious across the sill but was pulled through the window by a man. Firemen arrived and extinguished the flames. The children were unharmed. Washington was revived at a hospital and treated for smoke inhalation. He suffered burns on his arms which healed
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