Donut guys to the rescue: Employees at Kansas shop hailed as heroes at house fire.
A couple of employees at Daylight Donuts in Independence are being hailed as heroes for pulling a man from a burning home Tuesday morning.
Manager Jason Curtis said he arrived to work at around 3:30 a.m. and thought he smelled something burning at the shop. He asked Micheal Shinkle about it, but the cook didn’t smell anything. Curtis’ nose led him down the road where he and Shinkle saw the reflection of a fire off the windows of a home.
They called 911. The Independence Fire/EMS Department was called about the house fire at 3:36 a.m.
Around the time the men called 911, they saw a woman outside a home on fire, yelling: ‘the house is on fire, the house is on fire,’” Curtis said.
She told them people were still inside. A noise brought the two men to the front porch of the two-story home. They could make out someone was behind a partially broken window. Smoke was billowing out of the home.
“A ton of smoke,” Curtis said.
Curtis, who had a coat and gloves on during the frigid temperatures, knocked out the rest of the window with his enclosed left hand. Curtis said a man was knelt down by the window. He and Shinkle, who ran from the shop wearing shorts and a T-shirt, pulled him out onto the porch before noticing he was unable to stand.
They then carried him by his arms and legs into the front yard and went back to guide a “younger guy” out of the broken window, he said. Curtis thinks the window had been broken by the younger guy trying to help the man out of the house.
“When the adrenaline stopped, we started gagging” from smoke inhalation, Curtis said.
Curtis and Shinkle refused medical attention.
Three people were taken to an emergency room in Independence in stable, serious and critical conditions, according to Assistant City Manager/Director of Safety David Cowan, who arrived at the home as Curtis and Shinkle carried the man off the porch.
The stable person has been released, he said. The person in serious condition was transferred to a hospital in Parsons and the critical patient, the man who was helped from the home, was transferred to a hospital in Tulsa, he said.
“Without their assistance, that gentleman may not be here today,” he said, adding he didn’t know if his injuries could eventually be fatal.
Cowan said he believed a family pet died in the fire.
Independence Fire/EMS Department chief Shawn Wallis said the home is a total loss. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 5:19 PM.