John N. Hayes, 45, power company serviceman, saved Jimmy Don Ansay, 15 months, from burning, Mineral Wells, Texas, March 9, 1959. While Jimmy and his brother, 2, were asleep in the bedroom on the ground floor of a frame dwelling, fire broke out in the adjoining room. The older boy was wakened by the smoke and emerged from the dwelling as his mother returned from a neighbor’s house. Many persons, including Hayes, were attracted and heard the mother screaming hysterically for someone to get Jimmy. Hayes climbed through a window into the bedroom, which was filled with dense and acrid smoke. Heat was intense. Holding his breath, Hayes crawled along the floor and reached a double bed, but could not find Jimmy, who was in his crib but had made no outcry. Hayes returned to the window for air, and then crawled to each corner of the room, missing the crib in the dense smoke. Having been forced by his prolonged search to inhale some smoke, he went back to the window for air and was informed of Jimmy’s location. Volunteer firemen by then had arrived, and Hayes obtained an oxygen mask, which he put on. As one of the men played water from a hose through the window, Hayes crawled back across the room and found Jimmy unconscious in the crib. Hayes was within three feet of flames burning on the door as he rose and wrapped Jimmy in the bedclothes. He then carried Jimmy to the window, handed him to a fireman outside, and crawled through the opening. Fire destroyed half of the house. Jimmy was hospitalized for three weeks for burns on 40 percent of his body and for a lung condition resulting from the smoke. Hayes sustained burns from the heat and was affected by the smoke. They recovered.
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