It was just past midnight. The stars were shining across the sky. Nicholas Bostic, a 38-year-old driver, was still out on his evening pizza delivery shift. With his favorite music on, he enjoyed the soft wind kissing his face. A she drove pasta two-story house around a street corner, he was shocked at the frightening sight: It was on fire! He stopped his car and rushed over to assess the situation and to determine if anyone might be trapped inside. He reached for his phone to dial 911, but realized he left it at home. He didn’t hear sirens(警报) in the distance. Nor did he see any bystanders dialing the fire department. Nicholas feared the home’s sleeping occupants might not wakeup in time to move to safety.

With no time to waste, he made the courageous decision to enter the home on his own without protective gear(护具). He gained entry through the back door. He rushed upstairs, yelling “fire!” throughout the home. The oldest child, Seionna, heard his screams and woke up. She woke up her younger sister and a friend who had stayed the night. She then ran to grab her 1-year-old baby sister.

Nicholas called out to the terrified girls and instructed them to follow him. The sister—Seionna, 18; Shaylee, 13; and Kalia, 1―and their family friend, Livian, 13, followed his directions to escape to the safety of the street.

“For a minute I didn’t understand it,” Shaylee recalled. “But my sister ran upstairs with the baby in her hands, yelling at us to get up because there’s a fire. That’s when we went downstairs, and Nicolas was downstairs helping us.”

Once outside in the fresh air, the girls shook in far and coughed from the smoke. However, they soon realized that their 6-year-old sister, Kaylani, had not escaped with them.

Without hesitation, Nicholas rushed back into the now flame-filled home.

As flames shot at his feet, he broke the window’s glass with his bare hand.

In my free time, I like hiking challenges. It’s how I feed myself, physically, mentally, spiritually.

I looked over at my husband, Mike, and friends Emily and Jean, who’d joined me on this climb to the top of Nippletop Mountains. They were all fit, experienced hikers, though not as enthusiastic about it as me, Mike especially. He’s more of a tech guy.

We’d set off in the morning, dressed in layers against coldness. It took us just less than five hours to cover the five miles to the peak of Nippletop, with more snow and ice on the rocky trail the closer we got to the top. It was almost 1:30 pm now. We started to head down soon before it got dark.

A friendly young hiker waved to us. “Hey, want me to take your picture?”

“Absolutely!”

Mike gave the hiker his phone. That hiker snapped a few pictures for us.

We continued. I said, “I want to take a different trail so as to save time. It’s steeper (陡峭) but shorter.”

I led the way. They followed me with some distance apart. Carefully I sidestepped down the slope. A quarter mile down, I stopped and looked up the trail for the others. I couldn’t see them. Then a scream broke the quietness. Mike! He sprawled (瘫坐) on a steep, narrow, wooded part of the trail, about 100 feet ahead of me. Ice everywhere. His hands were holding his right leg tightly.

I shouted, “What happened?”

“I slipped on the ice,” he said. “Then I heard this crack. It hurts badly!”

Moments later, we got to Mike. “What should we do?” I asked. Jean checked Mike’s ankle. “We need to splint (夹板) it,” she said.

We fixed a hiking pole to Mike’s leg. What now? There was no way the three of us women could carry him down this mountain.

I pulled out my cell phone and called 911. Nothing. No signal. It was the same with the other three phones.

”Can I help?” It was the guy who’d taken our picture at the mountain top.

My words came out in a rush.

An hour went by, then another, and there was nothing we could do except wait for rescue in the coldness.

As National Sight Day approaches, it’s crucial to discuss the rising myopia rate among Chinese students.