{"id":51823,"date":"2024-11-11T20:37:22","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T01:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=51823"},"modified":"2024-11-11T20:37:27","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T01:37:27","slug":"aj-is-a-community-hero-the-act-of-bravery-is-unmatched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/11\/11\/aj-is-a-community-hero-the-act-of-bravery-is-unmatched\/","title":{"rendered":"AJ is a community hero. The act of bravery is unmatched"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anthony Slater (AJ)\u00a0 is a community hero. The act of bravery is unmatched. The amount of devastation in his voice when he had to tell us he couldn\u2019t save the girl was heartbreaking. My heart is with the family and the boy who is alongside Aj in the Tampa General burn unit facing 3rd-degree burns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Polk County Sheriff’s Office needs to recognize Aj for risking his life for these sweet children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\u00a0GoFundMe<\/a>\u00a0has been created to help Slater recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Samaritan describes trying to rescue 2 kids from a fiery Lakeland crash<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Good Samaritan is recounting the terrifying moments when he tried to rescue two young children from a fiery crash in a Lakeland neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He jumped into action when he heard a father\u2019s desperate pleas to save his two young children who were trapped inside a white Kia sedan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The car crashed in a wooded area near the intersection of Broadway Street and Lake Parker Drive East, according to the Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials say the car collided with a tree, which caused the car to catch fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Good Samaritan, Anthony Slater, reached into the burning car and pulled a 3-year-old boy from the flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt took me a while to get him out,\u201d Slater said. \u201cAs I got him out, I noticed there was another little girl next to him in a car seat fumbling around unconscious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slater reached back into the burning car to rescue the 5-year-old girl who was strapped in a car seat, but she did not survive the intensity of the flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tried to get it unlocked and I couldn\u2019t get it to unlock and at that time fire was just all over us burning us up,\u201d Slater said. \u201cShe was crying. I was talking to her and trying to calm her down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neighbors dialed 911 when they heard Slater\u2019s frantic calls for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was trying,\u201d Hal Clark said. \u201cHe was screaming \u2018help, help\u2019 and there\u2019s nobody to help. The flames were getting in, and you couldn\u2019t even get to it. It was too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slater is recovering at Tampa General Hospital with extensive burn wounds on his arms and ears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sad that I wasn\u2019t able to save her life, but I was able to save her brother,\u201d Slater said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office said the driver of the vehicle is 30-year-old Kody Wills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wills is recovering from a broken ankle and his 3-year-old son is expected to be OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A GoFundMe<\/a> has been created to help Slater recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go Fund Me for Walker and Jo\u2019s family. If you can\u2019t donate, please share. https:\/\/gofund.me\/4a9ecf8c<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anthony Slater (AJ)\u00a0 is a community hero. The act of bravery is unmatched. The amount of devastation in his voice when he had to tell us he couldn\u2019t save the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":51825,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/3106159874307340702-jpeg.webp","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[5427,12,14],"tags":[10312],"class_list":["post-51823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kindness-in-the-community","category-local","category-news","tag-aj-is-a-community-hero-the-act-of-bravery-is-unmatched"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51826,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51823\/revisions\/51826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}