2-year-old Brandon Dahl is being hailed a hero in his home and in his community after he alerted his parents of a house fire early in the morning while the family of seven slept.
If the toddler did not wake his parents, the outcome could have been disastrous.
The family’s smoke detectors were not working and did not go off when a fire started. In addition, Nathan and Kayla Dahl recently tested positive for COVID and had lost all sense of taste and smell. Around 4.30 a.m. little Brandon wandered into his parent’s bedroom to wake up mom, Kayla.
“He tapped me on my feet in bed and was coughing and saying, ‘Mama, hot. Mama, hot!’” shares Kayla.
And because Brandon was feeling unwell, she had put him to sleep in the living room, she could check on him throughout the night. Initially, she believed her sick toddler wanted to get out of his pajamas or sleep with fewer blankets.
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But Kayla quickly caught a glimpse of what was going on in the other room. “I turned around,” Kayla shared with the outlet. “I looked and all I saw was flames in the doorway.”
The Decatur Fire Department believes the fire was started by a gas heater in the living room, where Brandon was sleeping. Thankfully, “hot” was on of the few words the toddler had in his vocabulary. Nathan, who just happens to be a volunteer firefighter at the Alvord Fire Department, told WFAA-TV how the family’s fire emergency plan helped them to escape in under a minute.
“We’ve had a plan,” he stated. “This is how everything’s going to go.”
Thanks to the toddler’s warning and the family’s emergency preparedness, the family narrowly escaped a potentially fatal tragedy.
“About maybe a minute after we got out of the house, our front door had flames coming out of it,” Nathan told WFAA-TV. “Everything was in flames.”
Unfortunately, the one-story colonial home in Alvord, TX was completely destroyed. But amid the devastation, the family is grateful for their little “guardian angel.”
“It’s going to be a long, hard road to get to be where we need to be and to replace those material items,” Kayla told the Washington Post. “But at the same time, if it wasn’t for my son’s guardian angel that morning, I don’t know where we would be.”
Thankfully, the family has had some assistance from the community and received thousands of dollars due to an online fundraising campaign. In addition, Brandon has become the talk of the town.
“I don’t think he quite understands the impact of what he did,” Kayla shared with WTVR. “But he’s relishing the abundance of attention. If we go to Walmart or the gas station and somebody recognizes us from the news, they’ll pat him on the back and try to shake his hand [saying], ‘You’re a hero! I’m so happy to meet a hero!’”
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