‘The ceiling was on fire, the walls were on fire ...’

Ryan Anderson had his golf bag over his shoulder and was eager for a summer day on the links when he stepped outside of his apartment building and saw the little girl weeping in the courtyard.

“Help,” she told him between tears. “My apartment’s on fire and my brother’s inside.”

Anderson, 22, looked over and saw smoke billowing out of an open apartment door at Silver Springs Apartments, near Central and Ridge Road, on the last Friday of July.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed, it was “really just the couch that was on fire.

“I thought, ‘I should be able to get in and out before anything bad actually happens,’” he said.

He went inside to a bedroom, but could not find the girl’s younger brother. He went to the second bedroom and found him curled up in a corner, crying.

“He was terrified,” said Anderson, who told him, “Hey, I’m here to help you.”

Anderson picked up the boy, who is younger than 5, tucked him under his shirt and carried him into the living room.

By that time, perhaps a minute after he had entered the apartment, “it was like someone had poured gasoline on the fire.

“The ceiling was on fire, the walls were on fire, and I was like, ‘Oh...this is way more serious than I thought it was. This is bad,’” Anderson said.

There was only one way out — the front door — and Anderson knew he had to make it out.

“I was more worried about him getting hurt than I was about me,” he said.

Anderson dashed outside and set the boy down near his grateful older sister.

He is one of more than a half-dozen people being honored at the American Red Cross 2017 Heroes Breakfast on Tuesday morning at the Hyatt Regency. Anderson is one of two honorees credited with saving someone’s life in a fire.

Firefighter Brandon Maurer is being honored for locating and rescuing an unconscious man from a burning house in November 2016. Maurer braved high heat and heavy smoke coming from the basement to carry the man up the stairs on his own.

The man wasn’t breathing and had no pulse after Maurer carried him from the house, but he later revived and was transported to the burn unit at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis for treatment.

Anderson said he thought nothing of what he did that day last summer. In fact, he was planning on grabbing his golf clubs and getting on with his day until he noticed he had burned his leg.

“I don’t really know what I did” to get burned, he said. “I think I scraped up against the couch” as he was carrying the boy outside.

He fetched water and crackers for the two children, then went and washed and treated his leg, which was “all black.”

He put on sweat pants and went back outside to sit with the children until their parents and firefighters arrived. It wasn’t until his golfing buddy mentioned to a paramedic that Anderson had been burned that people started asking questions and discovered what had happened.

Anderson ended up with second-degree burns on the outside of his right leg. He had to keep it wrapped for several weeks and scars may stay with him forever.

But he’d do it again, he said.

“I didn’t really think twice about it,” he said. “I hope anybody who hears that there’s a 3-year-old boy who is stuck in a fire does something about it.”

He’s flattered by the honors and praise he has received, he said, but he said he doesn’t feel special.

“I’m no hero,” Anderson said. “I was the guy in the right place at the right time.

“I truly hope that everybody that was in the same position I was in would do the same thing I did.”

Others being honored Tuesday:

▪ Dennis Thomson, given the Commitment to Community Award for logging more than 700 hours in disaster response over the past two years.

▪ Wichita Fire Lt. Chris Fleming, given the Lifetime Hero Award for his contributions over 20 years, including helping establish a peer support group for members involved in stressful events on a daily basis.

▪ John Harris, given the Good Samaritan Award for his involvement with numerous agencies, including the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Anthony Family Shelter, Dear Neighbor Ministries at Hilltop and the Hutchinson Correctional Facility.

▪ Jon Beadles and his family, given the Gift of Life Award for his work coordinating blood drives at NetApp and for the family being regular blood donors over many years.

This story was originally published December 10, 2017 at 4:42 PM with the headline "‘The ceiling was on fire, the walls were on fire ...’."