It was the 4th of July weekend in 2023 and Madison, Indiana was complete chaos. The annual Madison Regatta is a series of boat races and a music festival on the Ohio River. Crowds lined the banks, late into the night. Then at one AM, disaster struck.

Police officers got a call that a second floor apartment was on fire, with five children trapped inside. When the first responders arrived, they heard shouts from upstairs but were blocked by a wall of flame.

The department stated, “Upon arriving, Officers observed that multiple people were trapped in an upstairs apartment, and the staircase was engulfed in flames.” Patrolman Philip Wimpee admitted, “It was one of the most chaotic scenes we’ve ever been on.”

The only upside was the sheer number of emergency personnel in the area. They rapidly gathered beneath the second story windows and urged the family to jump into their arms. There was only one problem: the family was trapped, the windows closed and locked.

The grandmother and children–as young as three years old–couldn’t get the windows open. So a 13-year-old girl took matters into her own hands. She wrapped her fist in t-shirts then, “She punched through and broke the glass out of the way.”

She climbed through the window and reached back to help her siblings. “She just started pulling the babies out and all the children jumped out.”

One-by-one, the family jumped into the policemen’s waiting arms. The first responders and good samaritans “were able to catch each child as they jumped from the windows.”

In bodycam footage, you can hear the crowd urging each child, “We got you, we got you!” Some of the kids screamed as they leapt. But true to their word, the crowd of police and civilians easily caught the kids and set them each on their feet.

Shortly after, firefighters arrived to fight the flames. Wimpee added that despite chaotic circumstances, the rescue was “the most seamless response we’ve probably ever had.” And the young girl’s quick-thinking and brave actions were a major part of this house fire’s happy ending.

Next, read about an 18-year-old girl who sacrificed herself to save a wheelchair-bound woman stuck on train tracks, or watch the Madison, Indiana fire bodycam footage in the video below: