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DES MOINES, Iowa — A 9-year-old boy from Iowa who saved his family from a fire received a special honor from local officials on Tuesday.
Juan Gomez, of Des Moines, received a Hero Award from the Saylor Township Fire Department, the organization stated in a Facebook post.
On Jan. 26, the boy woke up after smelling smoke and alerted family members to the blaze, KCCI-TV reported. The boy also comforted his younger sister as the family scrambled to safety, the fire department said in its Facebook post.
The family lost all of their possessions in the fire, the department said.
On Tuesday night, members of the Saylor Township Fire Department not only gave the boy a plaque to honor his bravery, but they also pooled their money and bought Juan a brand new PlayStation 5, a 32-inch television, a wireless controller and headphones, an Echo Dot and multiple games for his new video game system, according to the Facebook post.
The PlayStation replaced the one Juan lost in the fire, KCCI reported.
“I wasn’t really expecting that to happen,” the boy told the television station.
“Oftentimes after our members respond to and stabilize an incident, the smoke has cleared and they return to the station, they hear little or no update about those involved or how the family was impacted,” the fire department wrote on Facebook. “We could not be more proud of this young man and his actions that night and commend him for being a true hero.”
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