Three of the family's four children had already been spirited to safety. But a young boy remained on the second floor as smoke poured from the windows. The boy's dad was on the roof of the front porch, trying to get the toddler to climb through the window. But the kid was too terrified to move, and flames were too hot for the dad to enter. It did not look good.
But that's when Ryan Phillips, Occupation: Man showed up. He heard the woman screaming that her baby was still in the burning home. So he wrapped himself in a blanket and ran into the house. The first floor had yet to catch fire, but the second was filled with smoke. Ryan crept along the floor, searching for the toddler. But when he finally spotted him, the boy was too scared to move.
Then Phillips ran down stairs and delivered the child to his mother. Ryan, a 43-year-old construction worker, knows what it's like to lose a son. His own son was shot to death during an argument in 2006.
