A Texas deputy who ran into a burning house and saved a toddler trapped inside says God helped him that day.
“God put me where I was supposed to be,” said Cody Downs, who is a Jasper County Sheriff’s deputy in Texas.
“By the grace of God I happened to be in the area when the call dropped,” Downs said. “It was one of the scariest things I’ve been on because I didn’t know if the child was breathing or not.”
Downs responded to a call on Saturday night to a house fire where a 3-year-old girl was trapped inside.
Two other children who were inside the house were able to escape, Sheriff Mitchel Newman and Child Protective Services told reporters.
Downs said he arrived on scene and told himself he wouldn’t quit until he saved the girl.
“You can’t give up,” he said he told himself. “You have to keep fighting until you get this baby out. She is your No. 1 priority. Get her out and then we will deal with whatever you got going on later.”
A neighbor said Downs and her son broke the door down to the house, but Downs told the son to leave when he saw the severity of the fire. He found the girl in the master bedroom of the house.
“[I felt] joy because I found the child and she was alive and she was breathing. And by the grace of God, you know, He put her under a blanket. I firmly believe that God wrapped a blanket around that child to keep her from getting injured,” he said.
Downs exited the house, handed the girl to another official and collapsed from smoke inhalation. They were both taken to the hospital and are both recuperating, according to The Christian Post.
Reports say it’s unclear what started the fire.