An officer with the Seagoville Police Department is being commended for his bravery after helping a family out of a burning home early Saturday morning.
According to police, Officer Sam Click was patrolling his assigned area when he found the garage of a duplex home in the 700 block of Casa Grande Drive engulfed in flames. The fire was moving toward the home where a dad and his six young children were asleep inside.
Body camera footage showed Click decided to enter the home within seconds of arriving on scene.
"The fire department, they were minutes away and I don’t think we had minutes," Officer Click told NBC 5.
When he arrived on scene, neighbor Shelby Hood was outside screaming for the family to wake up.
Hood said she saw the fire through her blinds next door. She said it took less than a minute for her to race outside. In that time, the fire had spread.
"I see like a flash of light, I pulled the blinds down and I freaked, I lost it," Hood said. "By the time I got here, the heat was so hot and the flames were so loud I couldn’t hear myself screaming."
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She was able to wake up Jeremy Giblaint, who lived in the unit attached to the burning duplex. Giblaint knew his brother-in-law and six nephews were inside next door. Flames were burning at the front door, so they ran to the back and broke in.
Body camera footage showed Click waking up the sleeping father inside as Gilblaint and the officer turned into another bedroom and picked up the rest of the children. There were six kids inside the home, ranging in age from six months to ten years old. All made it out without any injuries.
"I keep looking at it and keep replaying everything in my mind and realizing how close we were to losing everything, losing family," Giblaint said.
"From the heroic actions of these neighbors and Officer Sam Click, all residents were safely removed from the duplex with no significant injuries reported," according to a press release from the Seagoville Police Department.
"He went against orders to come in here to put his life on the side to rescue my nephews," Giblaint said. "You can't ask anybody to do that. It takes a special kind of person to put your life on the line for others."
Click said he thought about the rescue on his way home after his shift ended that morning.
"It was one of those moments when you kind of sit there -- that's something you hope you never have to do again," Click said. "I was just at the right place, at the right time and I just had to take action."
The fire started in the garage. There's no word yet on the cause. There were smoke detectors in the home, but it's not clear if they were working. Click said smoke had just started seeping into the home when he went inside to wake up the family.
The children's mother works as a home healthcare aide. She was at work when the fire broke out. The family of eight is fine and staying with other relatives until they can rebuild.
