When a husband and wife left their 13-year-old son in charge of his four younger sisters, they never imagined they’d return home to find their house ablaze. However, that’s exactly what happened, and the terrified couple would soon learn what the boy had done while they were away.
Briar Omar, a 13-year-old Wisconsin boy, quickly garnered both local and national attention after his parents left him home alone with his four younger sisters. Kelly Omar and her husband, Jay, were only running out to the grocery store to grab something for dinner for their family on a Monday evening, so they thought everything would be fine for the brief time they were gone.
Sadly, they were wrong. When the parents returned home, they were welcomed by a sight that rightfully terrified them. Their house was up in flames, and all Kelly could think about was her children, who had been inside. Just as Kelly and her husband pulled up outside, Briar and the family dog, Mandy, got out of the burning house. But, what about their four young girls?
“Until you physically saw every single child, it was just terrifying,” Kelly Omar admitted. Thankfully, Briar had been alerted to the flames before they spread out of control, and he knew just what to do. The oldest of the kids didn’t hesitate to act quickly, saving his four younger sisters from the house fire. But, he wasn’t the only hero that day.
Just 10 minutes after the children’s parents had left for the store, their kids — ranging in age from 6 months to 13 years — smelled smoke on the first floor, WECT News 6 reported. “My sister said it was really smoky, and we looked behind us, and the playpen was on fire,” Briar recalled.
The boy quickly flew into action, getting the girls outside to safety before the blaze became a large house fire that could easily have turned deadly. “My sisters, that was the first thing I thought of, and I just knew I needed to get them out of the house,” Briar explained. And, that’s exactly what he did before he went back into the house to try to put out the fire himself, using a fire extinguisher.
Sadly, his efforts to save the home were in vain. Unable to extinguish the flames, the fire began to consume the family home with Briar still inside. That’s when a second hero emerged. “It went up in bigger flames, and I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I almost collapsed,” Briar recalled, describing how he was overcome while trying to save the home.
Thankfully, Mandy, the family dog, wasn’t about to let anything bad happen to her boy. “[T]hat’s when I felt my dog rub against me. I grabbed her, and she led me out the door,” Briar said, recalling the moment the dog reportedly led him to safety after his unsuccessful bid to extinguish the flames, The Blaze reported.
The pair got out of the burning house just in time for Briar’s parents to pull up outside. Although their house was engulfed in flames, they were relieved that the family had talked about what to do in an emergency and, more importantly, that Briar had obviously remembered those lessons, saving the family from further heartache.
As Kelly searched through the rubble days after the blaze tore through their home, searching for anything she could salvage, she was obviously devastated by what was lost. However, she was also grateful, realizing they were fortunate for what the family still had — each other.
“We’re just so thankful that every single one of them made it out,” Kelly said, crediting her son for saving his four younger sisters. “[I]f it wasn’t for my son, I don’t know where I’d be.”
While losing a home to a house fire is an incredibly tragic incident, losing loved ones to the blaze would make it even worse. Thankfully, this family doesn’t have to deal with that frightening reality because of a young boy’s bravery and know-how. Let this be a reminder to the rest of us to educate our kids on what to do in an emergency. It might just save a life — or in this case, the lives of four little girls.
