Marcy, N.Y. - Four Central New York teens were honored by the Red Cross Thursday for helping save a family by alerting them that their home was on fire.
On May 17, Whitesboro High School students Aiden Kane, Morgan Randall, Tyler Sojda and Donato Jellencich were driving from their junior prom to an afterparty when they noticed flames in a yard on Cavanaugh Road in Marcy.
“We all thought it was a campfire or something,” said Aiden, 17. “Once we got closer, we realized it was a bit bigger than we thought.”
As they pulled in front of the home, the teens saw the garage directly next to it engulfed in flames.
The group ran toward the house to see if anyone was home.
Video taken by Aiden captured in detail what happened next.
The video shows him sprinting to the front of the home and banging on the door over two dozen times as the fire raged directly next to him.
The other teens ran to see if anyone was inside the garage. The flames had begun to spread toward the home, burning the siding off as the residents inside the home were unaware of the fire.
“Your house is on fire! Your house is on fire!” Aiden yelled as several people inside the home came toward the door.
Two young girls inside the home opened the door, their father directly behind them picking up the phone to call 911.
“You guys gotta get out,” Aiden said as the girls began to cry and panic.
He brought the girls outside, leading them away from the fire just as several propane tanks in the burning garage exploded.
“You’re okay, just walk over here,” Aiden said.
When the kids were brought to safety, Morgan comforted them as they stood on the other side of the road.
“I just made sure that the kids were safe, crossed the road with them,” she said on Thursday at a Red Cross ceremony in Syracuse. “One was crying - they were small.”
Jared Pearl, fire chief of the Maynard Fire Department, said he gives the teens credit for saving both the home and its occupants.
“The family had no idea what was going on,” he said. “It would have started spreading and started to catch the house and engulf the house in flames.”
The teens were honored by the Red Cross for their actions that night with the Youth Good Samaritan Hero Award at the Real Heroes Celebration in Syracuse on Thursday.
Aiden’s father, Donald, has worked for years with police, EMS and firefighters. The teen said he has spent his childhood watching his dad respond to all kinds of emergencies.
That night, he didn’t hesitate to follow in his footsteps.
“I just knew I had to do something about it, I’m not just going to watch a house burn down,” he said. “If we didn’t call the fire department as soon as we did, it would have ended up actually getting the house too.”
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