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'Catch My Child': Courageous Firefighter Saves Toddler Hanging From Second-Floor Window of Burning Building

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“I saw a job that had to get done.”

That’s how a heroic Washington, D.C., firefighter described his daring and life-saving acts after he caught a toddler hanging from the second-floor window of a burning building Sunday.

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“You could see the front door was filled with black smoke, and as we were advancing with the attack line to the front of the building, a father was hanging out of the window with his child,” Kenny McKiney, a firefighter with the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, told WRC-TV.

The 17-year fire veteran said the father, trapped amid billowing smoke, told him, “Catch my child; don’t drop him.”

McKiney said the dad then released the toddler, who dropped almost 20 feet. Remarkably, the little boy was uninjured and calm during the incident.

“When he dropped the child down, I extended my arms, and when I felt the child made contact,” McKiney said. “I just cradled the child to my body.”

Watch the courageous firefighter discuss the harrowing incident:

As for McKiney’s emotional state during the ordeal, he said he was so busy trying to do the job before him he didn’t even have time to get nervous about the shocking details surrounding the rescue.

“Everything happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to get nervous,” he said. “It was more so, I saw a job that had to get done, and I was trying to execute it to the best of my ability.”

Praise God the situation ended positively, as firefighters also rescued the rest of the boy’s family; everyone was successfully brought to safety.

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About The Author

Billy Hallowell writes for CBN's Faithwire.com. He has been working in journalism and media for more than a decade. His writings have appeared in CBN News, Faithwire, Deseret News, TheBlaze, Human Events, Mediaite, PureFlix, and Fox News, among other outlets. He is the author of several books, including Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation Into Demons, Exorcism, and Ghosts Hallowell has a B.A. in journalism and broadcasting from the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, New York and an M.S. in social research from Hunter College in Manhattan, New York.