Members of the Sitka High School basketball team saved people from an apartment fire in Anchorage, Alaska, on Wednesday and are being lauded as heroes.
The boys called 911, alerted residents and helped them escape the fire. No injuries were reported, but 25 people were displaced,
The Alaska Dispatch News reported.
Coach Andy Lee was driving with the team when player Tevin Bayne saw smoke coming from the building. In town for a tournament, the team was on the way to breakfast when they stopped to help. The players went around the building banging on windows to alert residents. Lee went inside the building and banged on doors.
Yelling from the entryway, Bayne used his voice to help guide Lee and groups of residents through the smoke to safety.
Mohammed Adad, a resident of the building, said no smoke alarms were triggered.
“Somebody came from outside, said, ‘Get out, everybody, get out, everybody — fire, fire!’ ” he said, according to the Dispatch News.
Lee said he noticed a passerby taking photos,
KCAW-TV reported. Realizing that no one was out of the building, he operated on adrenaline to get people out of the six-plex as quickly as possible, fearing that there were propane tanks on the deck.
“One lady, after we got 10 out, said her baby was still inside,” Lee said, according to the station. “And by that time it was more than fully engulfed. And in that moment of panic, as we were trying to decide what to do, a 14-year-old girl came running out through the only exit point in the building — and she was the baby. And so everybody got out safe.”
Twitter users cheered the boys for their efforts.
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