Thanks to late-night video games, S.C. teen was awake to save family
COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - A Columbia teenager said he saved his family’s life because he was up late at night playing video games.
The Columbia-Richland Fire Department responded to a two-alarm fire on Garden Hill Drive in the Summit neighborhood Tuesday morning at around 12:45 a.m. Crews were there until 5 a.m.
Avante Weeks, a rising eighth-grader at Kelly Mill Middle School, saw the whole thing unfold. He was playing video games with his friends when he heard popping noises, thinking his neighbors were enjoying an outside fire.
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“I go downstairs, and I see that it’s the fire illuminating from my car, and I’m like, ‘That’s not right.’ Fire doesn’t really reach that far,” he said.
“So I go to my back door, and I look where they normally have a fire, and they’re not there,” he said. “I’m like, ‘Huh, that’s weird,’ and so I keep walking, I see the house completely, well, not completely on fire, but I saw a little bit of it starting.”
Weeks quickly sprang into action and woke up everyone inside the house. His family was able to get out of the burning home safely.
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His mom says she’s extremely proud of him and thankful for what he did to make sure his family got out safely.
“I just feel really proud of myself and how fast I thought,” said Weeks. “Because I was thinking so fast, I didn’t even have a chance to put on a shirt, no shoes, didn’t grab my phone. I just thought fast.”
Two families are now in hotels after the fire destroyed their homes.
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