Heat of the moment

Sometimes, our futures are made clear to us in the midst of a hot moment. 

The other morning, 16-year-old Tyler Sowden was on the phone in the family's home in Cleveland. He heard a scream, and unlike many people, he went outside to see what was up. 

What he saw was black smoke pouring from a neighbor's house.

A lot of people would have stood there and said, "Huh! Someone's house is on fire!" So Tyler grabbed a ladder from his garage and beat feet down the street.  At the burning house, a woman, a baby, and a child were screaming for help from the second story porch roof.

Tyler chocked the ladder, climbed up and grabbed the baby with one arm, holding onto the ladder with the other. Down he went, taking the baby to safety before helping the mother and her son down the ladder as well.

A minute later, the house was fully involved in fire.

“It was God who used him like an angel to save our lives,” said Judith Avila Padilla, the mother whose family owe Tyler their lives. She had awakened to acrid black smoke filling her second floor bedroom as she rounded up her 11-month-old daughter, Grace, and her 7-year-old son, Caleb. As they crawled out onto the roof, she heard her other song, Abner, 12, yelling as she jumped off another porch roof.

And then here came Tyler with that 40-foot extension ladder (100 lbs) to make the rescue. He had learned to throw the ladder by tagging along on construction jobs with his father.

It was another minute before the Cleveland Fire Dept arrived. Lt. Mike Norman said, "(Tyler) certainly put himself in harm’s way to help that family."

 And as rain began to fall on the scene, he felt exhausted as he watched the firefighters extinguish the flames. “It was just kind of insane to think what I did,” he said.

And then his mom took him to Taco Bell for a grilled cheese burrito.

And then he slept for more than eight hours.

And then, a few days later, Cleveland Cavaliers basketball star Donovan Mitchell called Sowden one of “the real heroes in this community.”

And then, Tyler decided he wants to be a firefighter when he's old enough (he's already grown up enough!)

“I didn’t really have a plan until this kind of happened,” Sowden said. “I’m like, ‘Maybe that’s a sign.’”

It certainly is.