Heroic rescue. (The Goodness of America).(teenager rescues baby from burning house)(Brief Article)

Kaylin Williams and daughters Taeler Moore, 3, and Chelsea Moore, 4, were asleep in their North Houston, Texas, home on December 30, 2001 when Taeler woke her mom at around 1:15 a.m. to complain that she could not breathe. By then, smoke from a quickly spreading fire had become so dense that Williams was unable to locate Chelsea. After taking Taeler outside to safety, she returned to search for Chelsea, but still could not find her. With Taeler in tow, she ran for help to her mother's home next door.

At about that time, 17-year-old Richard Ayala and some friends happened to drive by and notice the smoke and flames that were engulfing the small, wood-frame house. They stopped, and after breaking through a wooden fence, heard Sue Williams screaming that her granddaughter was trapped in a bedroom of the burning structure.

As reported in the next day's Houston Chronicle, Ayala, who could hear Chelsea crying, "covered his hand with the sleeve of his jacket, smashed the bedroom window with his fist and crawled through the opening. When he got into the room, he couldn't see because it was filled with black smoke." Guided by Chelsea's cries, he was able to locate her, lift her through the window, then leap from the burning room himself. Volunteer firemen arrived and had the blaze under control within minutes, but ...