Hero catches baby dropped from burning building
Published: December 6, 2006
“When I looked down and saw Mason smile, I knew it would be all right,” Jonathon Thorpe recalled.
But Mason “had fun. He was ready to do it again,” he said of his 14-month-old son, shortly after dropping him from a second-floor window into the waiting arms of a neighbor.
“I was scared to death,” Thorpe said.
At the time, fire was ravaging an eight-unit building.
The neighbor who caught the boy was Nate Thompson and, like many people who do heroic things, he didn’t hang around very long.
Thompson, who lives in the apartment complex and helped knock on doors with others to rouse those in the burning building, had to get to work.
“All I was able to get was his name, and that he was going to work and saw the fire. I didn’t even get a chance to thank him,” Thorpe, 20, said. [Coincidence or Destiny?: Stories of Synchoronicity That Illuminate Our Lives]
Four people were treated at a local hospital for smoke inhalation, including Mason and another child, who was suspected of starting the blaze that caused about $700,000 damage, township Fire Chief Barry Cousino said.
Fire officials said they believe the other child, whose name was not released, was playing with a lighter about 8 a.m. in a first-floor apartment at the complex.
Thick smoke quickly filled the structure as neighbors, passers-by, and apartment complex employees joined in the effort to help residents flee into the 17-degree weather.
Thorpe said his girlfriend, Brooke Desponse, 20, woke him up as smoke started to spread through their upstairs apartment.
Thorpe said Desponse jumped from a bedroom window.
She was joined on the ground by Thompson, who caught Mason.
Thorpe jumped shortly afterward.
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