11-year-old boy credited with rescuing siblings from house fire

WINCHESTER, Ill. (WGEM/Gray News) - For most kids, the weekend is filled with playing, relaxing and getting ready for the week ahead.

But a single day can turn a kid’s life around.

At 6:45 a.m. on Dec. 14, Kyler Thompson’s parents were running to the airport to drop off his dad.

Then the worst happened.

The family’s master bedroom caught fire due to a space heater.

Kyler, the middle child of the Thompson family, had one thought: get everyone out of the house.

The first thing Kyler noticed was his sister screaming from the master bedroom.

“It was filled with smoke and she was screaming. She was scared, really bad,” said Kyler.

Remembering the plans his parents taught him, he jumped into action. First, he got his sister outside to safety. Then, he ran back in the house for his pets and his older brother, Hunter, who was still asleep.

“I was yelling at him and I pushed him, and he got up. He thought I was kidding,” Kyler said.

Together, Kyler and his brother ran to their neighbors to get help. Hunter called his parents, who abruptly turned around to get back to their family.

“He called, and we didn’t think it was as bad as he said it was,” said Abby Thompson, Kyler’s mother. “Well, ‘Go in,’ we thought. Maybe something sparked or a paper might have caught fire. ‘Well, can you put it out? What’s going on?’ He said, ‘No, it’s full of smoke, I can’t get back in there! There was a loud boom.’ And I said, ‘Go, get out of the truck!’ If things didn’t pan out exactly how it did, then I’d be planning funerals instead of trips or Christmas or things like that.”

During the fire, a propane tank in the household exploded, causing rescue efforts to take longer than expected.

The day of the fire and the weeks following have been emotionally difficult, Abby Thompson said, especially since one of their dogs, Bailey, ran back into the house during the fire after being taken to safety by Kyler.

After the stress of the fire, the Thompsons wanted a sense of normalcy. The next day, the kids all volunteered to go back to school.

Abby Thompson said that was when the reality of it all finally hit her.

“I cried when I dropped them off. I don’t think it really hit me, like hit me, hit me, until I walked them up to the door and the teacher at the door just looked at me, and I lost it because I almost didn’t get the opportunity to do this,” Abby Thompson said.

Even though the family lost everything, Abby Thompson said she is happy to still have everyone together.

Even with everything that happened, they were able to take their trip to Florida. The community has been banding together to help Kyler and his family get back on their feet.

To his family, Kyler is a hero. Others are recognizing him as a hero as well.

He will be recognized by the city of Winchester and the Illinois State Fire Marshal for his heroism on Jan. 7. However, Kyler thinks he didn’t do anything different than what anyone else would do in that situation.