Tag: bacon

ASBURY PARK — The boy’s frightened cries for help echoed down the block, louder than the roar of the flames consuming the house he was trapped in.

Joseph Dunbar of Neptune was riding his bicycle down Prospect Avenue when he heard the cries for help. So did Asbury Park Officer Dewitt Bacon, when he arrived on the scene of the burning home.

It was 8:45 a.m. Heavy smoke was billowing out the second floor, as large flames of fire burst through a first-floor window, climbing higher toward the second floor with each passing minute.

As Bacon, 33, ran toward the fire, he could hear the child crying for help from the side of the house.

“Where you at?” the officer yelled.

“Up here,” the terrified boy cried out.

“So intially I run to the back window. I try to just get eyes on him, so I yell to him to get the window, he gets to the window, and at this point I am thinking I have to get him out of there,” Bacon said. “The fire is going, it is smoking, just break it out. Break the window as fast as you can and try to get through.”

Back in March a man died during a house fire on the same street. Dunbar told himself “we couldn’t have another one of these” and knew he had to do something.

“Me and Officer Bacon arrived at the same time. I was on a bike and he was in car. I heard the kid yelling from all the way up the block,” Dunbar, 35, said.

The 8-year old was able to rip the screen and get his two legs out first.

“I am just hoping that he trusts me enough to catch him because I know in his mind it is two bad situations. If he stays in there, it’s smoking. If he comes out he might fall and also hurt himself,” Bacon said.

When Officer John Walsh, 29, arrived on the scene, he said he started to hear the screaming from the side of the house.

“I came around the corner, I see Officer Bacon and Joe (Dunbar), and I just see feet hanging out of a window. So, at that point I realize there is a kid up there and he is trying to get out,” Walsh said.

Dunbar wanted to keep the 8-year old calm as much as possible. He said he was only thinking “just save the kid” but contemplated climbing on the air conditioning unit right below the second floor window to break the juvenile’s fall.

“He goes to the church I go to, right next door to his house,” Dunbar said.

The three men pleaded with the boy, whose legs were dangling out the window, to jump before he passed out from the smoke.

”Jump!” the men begged the boy. “Jump! We got you, we got you.”

“Jump! We’re right here. Jump!”

“Jump! Get you through, brother. We’re right here! Jump!”

”Just jump! Come on, just do it. Jump! Jump!”

The boy then jumped and was caught safely by the officers. Then Walsh ran him to the curb to make sure he was still breathing as he was on the verge of losing consciousness.

“It was almost like catching a punt on a football field,” Walsh said. “At that point I just kind of picked him up, said let’s go kid, threw him over my shoulder and ran.”

The mother of the child was on her way home from work.

“I am just happy he trusted us enough to fall into our arms,” Bacon said.

Dunbar said “that was a brave kid.”

“In that situation he didn’t know what to do. He was scared. We talked to him and he listened to the calmness in our voices. That is what he needed,” Dunbar said.

Sgt. Michael Casey said, “In this day and age it has become very common when an incident like this happens that people stay in the background.”

“They’re inclined to be on their cell phone filming instead as opposed to stepping up and helping out,” Casey said. “Joseph Dunbar should be commended, with Officer Walsh and Officer Bacon, they were able to talk this young man out of the window, and he fell to safety.”

Bacon has been with the department since 2016 and Walsh since 2018.

When Captain Robert Fahnholz arrived on scene first for the Asbury Park Fire Department he said fire was coming out the first-floor window and bystanders were telling him there was a child in the second-floor window.

The men who saved the child agree there was no time left despite the fire trucks being a couple of minutes away.

“With the amount of smoke and the fire rising every two seconds, I doubt it,” Dunbar said. “(The fire) came through the front door within seconds of us arriving. When we arrived, it already came and knocked out the side widow. That is what made us notice the side because (the fire) blew out the side. He didn’t have minutes.”

The fire department immediately transported the 8-year old to Jersey Shore Medical Center for treatment of smoke inhalation and a further medical evaluation.

“There were already people that had safely evacuated, since it is a two-family home,” Bacon said. “I believe the fire probably began on the bottom. So those two gentlemen had already left the house, and this young juvenile was upstairs sleeping and just happened to wake up.”

The cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Monmouth County Fire Marshals, in coordination with the Asbury Park Fire Department and Asbury Park Police Department.

Asbury Park Social Services and the American Red Cross responded to assist the residents with immediate needs and housing.

The two officers said it is all about trust with the community.

“That kid trusted us to get him out of that window. Thankfully, he did jump,” Walsh said. “I think that is something that all parents should be able to tell their kids, that they can trust us. We are their last line of life right there and we got him out that window.”

The child is expected to make a full recovery.

Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: WATCH: Dramatic rescue of boy, 8, from Asbury fire. ‘Jump! We got you’