Wilbur W. Griggs, Jr., helped to save three children from burning, Farmville, Virginia, March 4, 1969. Four small children were unattended in a bedroom in a one-story section of a frame dwelling when fire broke out in the adjoining living room. Noticing flames at the living room window, Griggs, 35, quality control manager, and two other men ran to the porch of the dwelling. One man opened the living-room door and, guided by screams of the children, crawled into the dwelling. Griggs did likewise; but their path was blocked by flames and they returned to the porch. While the third man went to summon firemen, Griggs and the first man ran to the side of the house. The first man forced open the door of the kitchen, which adjoined the bedroom, and in dense smoke crawled into the dwelling. Griggs, following, located and opened two windows. The first man crawled into the bedroom, where flames covered one wall and part of the ceiling. He located the bed and called out that he had found the children. Two of them, one at a time, were taken by the man to the bedroom doorway, from where Griggs carried each to the outside. When Griggs crawled back to the doorway and met the man with another child, both men were feeling effects of the smoke. They crawled out of the dwelling. The third man removed the last child. Soon afterward the bedroom ceiling collapsed.
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