J. Paul Welton, 15, schoolboy, saved Roy L. Traylor, 7 months, from suffocation, Portsmouth, Ohio, February 13, 1967. Fire broke out on the second floor of an abandoned house behind the frame dwelling where Roy had been left alone in an apartment at the rear of the second floor while his mother went to a nearby store. Flames issued partway across the four-foot space between the two buildings and lapped at the apartment dwelling. Learning from the mother that Roy was in the apartment, Welton ran to the rear of the dwelling and thence between the two buildings to the second-floor entrance. He entered the dwelling and ascended an enclosed stairway to a hall, where flames could be seen outside a window. In the dense smoke he made his way to the door of the apartment. He entered and searched until he found Roy in the bedroom. By that time flames had appeared on the outside wall near the bedroom window and on the roof above it. Welton carried Roy to the stairway, in which the smoke had increased, and descended to the outside door. Flames then covered most of the wall opposite the door. Shielding Roy, Welton stooped and ran 12 feet between the two buildings, where flames issued as much as three feet from the side of the abandoned house. Flames spread rapidly on the apartment dwelling. Its second floor was gutted, and the abandoned house burned to the ground before firemen succeeded in extinguishing the flames.
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