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After the fire: ‘I feel like he was God sent’

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After the fire: ‘I feel like he was God sent’

Lafayette family waits to meet, thank man who spotted a house fire, saved 6-year-old by leaping from second-floor window

Dave Bangert
Jul 13, 2022
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Thanks this morning to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for support to help make this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project possible.


Nick Bostic (Photo provided)

By Tuesday night, as he was sorting through “the crazy stupid” outpouring of help from the community after a fire gutted his family’s home early Monday morning, David Barrett was still waiting to meet Nick Bostic face-to-face.

Barrett didn’t hesitate, sight unseen, to point to Bostic, a 25-year-old Lafayette man recovering in an Indianapolis hospital, as a hero. Bostic was being credited for running into the burning home, helping to roust sleeping children and then going back in, finding Barrett’s 6-year-old, Kaylani, and rescuing her by jumping from a second-floor window as firefighters were arriving to the house in the 2200 block of Union Street.

“Whatever brought him there at that moment,” Barrett said, “I feel like he was God sent. He saved something that was priceless.”

Brian Alkire, an assistant chief with Lafayette Fire Department, said he was waiting to speak with Bostic, too, about the rescue at a fire first reported around 12:30 a.m. Monday. For now, Alkire said he was considering the fire accidental, though the investigation was ongoing Tuesday.

But as of Tuesday, funds were being set up to raise money for Bostic’s hospital care, which included a transfer to Eskanazi Hospital in Indianapolis to treat him for smoke inhalation and an injured arm.

Family members said Bostic wasn’t able to take calls Tuesday evening.

According to accounts, Bostic was driving by the home on Union Street and noticed a fire near the front of the house. He ran inside, where five people were.

Barrett, assistant principal at Tecumseh Junior High School, said he and his wife, Tiera, had left less than a half-hour earlier. He said they got a call from their daughter, Seionna, 18, that the house was on fire.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

Livian Knifley, 13, was sleeping over at the house with her friend, Shaylee Barrett. They were in a second-floor bedroom when the fire started.

“We were dead asleep, and all of a sudden there was Seionna yelling at us to get up, and this guy I’d never seen in my life standing over us, screaming that we had to get out,” Knifley said. “They were like, ‘Now!’”

Seionna Barrett gathered her sister Kaleia, 20 months old, and along with Bostic ushered the girls to the front lawn. Knifley said that’s where they realized Kaylani, the Barretts’ 6-year-old daughter, was still inside. She said Bostic told them all to stay put in the yard.

“He said, ‘I’ll get her,’ and ran back inside,” Knifley said. “I don’t know, but it felt like he was in there forever. … I was just bawling.”

Knifley said eventually she heard the sound of breaking glass on the back side of the house. Moments later, she said, Bostic came around the corner carrying Kaylani, handing her to firefighters on the scene.

“I really didn’t think they were going to get out,” Knifley said. “The fire was spreading really fast.”

Barrett said Kaylani told him later that she’d been on the first floor when Bostic found her. Barrett said he’s not sure why Bostic wound up going upstairs, but he did, jumping from the second-floor window with the 6-year-old in his arms.

Kara Lewis, Bostic’s girlfriend, said Bostic told her he’d gone to fill the gas tank on her car that night. She said she found out that he was in the hospital – first at Franciscan Health in Lafayette before being transferred to Indianapolis – when police came to her home near downtown.

“An officer told me what Nick had done,” Lewis said. “‘He just saved a couple of lives in a house fire’ – that’s what she said.”

Lewis said Bostic had to be intubated after the fire. But later she said he was still trying to process what had happened.

“He told me he’s shocked that police called him a hero,” Lewis said. “He can’t believe that. He’s just an average guy, that’s what he always says. He’s just shocked about everything.”

Valerie Holdman, Livian Knifley’s aunt, started a Facebook-based fundraiser after finding out that Bostic had been taken to the hospital in Indianapolis. She said she reached to Lewis to help set it up so the funds would go directly to Bostic to help with hospital bills.

As of Tuesday night, the Facebook fundraiser had more than $7,300 of a $50,000 goal. A second GoFundMe account, started by Bostic’s cousin Richard Stair, rolled out Tuesday.

“I didn’t know how to set that amount,” Holdman said. “If I had a million dollars, I’d give it to him. If he hadn’t been there, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened. … If he’d driven past and called 911 and waited, like most people think to do, those kids would have died. How do you put a price on what he did?”

Barrett said he and his family were still trying to process things, too.

He said friends and the school community had found them places to stay and, in a matter of a couple of days, had helped replace clothes, computers and electronics for school and were on call to help with other needs. Barrett said he took it as a sign that one of the few things in the home’s living room that survived the fire was a decorative wooden plaque that said, “Love.”

“How the community has stepped up, I keep saying it’s surreal, because it just is,” Barrett said. “It’s crazy stupid how much everyone is showing all this love.”

Next up would be meeting Bostic.

“There’s not words I can express,” Barrett said. “He saved my baby.”

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Here’s a link to a Facebook campaign to help with Bostic’s medical bills.

Thank you for reading this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project. This post is public so feel free to share it.

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This and that …

KOSSUTH STREET PLANS: More road work coming … This time, the Lafayette board of works on Tuesday signed off on a contract worth $1.5 million with Midwest Paving LLC to repave Kossuth Street, from South Fourth Street to Earl Avenue. The project will include 80 curb ramps at intersection and some sidewalk and curb work on the 1.7-mile stretch, city engineer Jeromy Grenard said. The project is expected to start this year, with a completion date of July 21, 2023. The work comes as projects continue on Teal Road – a major Indiana Department of Transportation reconstruction project expected to run in various forms through September 2024 – and Ninth Street, where city crews have paved south of Teal Road and are expected to start working between Greenbush and South streets in late July. Grenard said work on South Ninth, between South Street and Teal Road, should start later this year.

A VIEW FROM THE JWST: Did you catch the first shots from the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope? Unreal. Here are few, along with a link to a broad gallery …

Twitter avatar for @NASAWebb
NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb
Webb’s first full-color images are now the world’s to enjoy! We hope you found them as meaningful and beautiful as we did. Here’s to many years of Webb science — we can’t wait to see what’s next as we continue to #UnfoldtheUniverse!
go.nasa.govNASA Reveals Webb Telescope’s First Images of Unseen UniverseThe dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
4:02 PM ∙ Jul 12, 2022
25,917Likes5,545Retweets
Twitter avatar for @NASA_Marshall
NASA Marshall @NASA_Marshall
Is anyone else starstruck?! 🌌 @NASAWebb's first images have been released! Which one is your favorite? #UnfoldTheUniverse View all five images HERE>> go.nasa.gov/3Rtx9D3
Image
Image
Image
Image
4:33 PM ∙ Jul 12, 2022
56,281Likes15,577Retweets
Twitter avatar for @SpaceTelescope
Space Telescope Science Institute @SpaceTelescope
Explore all of the James Webb Space Telescope's first images in one place: webbtelescope.pub/FirstImagesGal… #NASAWebb #UnfoldTheUniverse
Image
3:47 PM ∙ Jul 12, 2022
4,389Likes1,750Retweets

Thanks, again, to sponsor Stuart & Branigin for helping make this edition of the Based in Lafayette reporting project happen.

THANKS FOR SUPPORTING INDEPENDENT, LOCAL REPORTING.

Tips or story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com. Also on Twitter and Instagram.

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1 Comment
Buffy Rogers
Jul 27, 2022

Thanks to humble Nick Bostic for showing such courage and perserverance in saving the lives of those children.

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