Tragedy resulted in heroism as an Oregon teen saved a baby whose family had heartbreakingly been electrocuted.
Majiah Washington was looking out her window in Portland, Oregon, during an icy winter storm on Wednesday, January 17, when she witnessed a horrible tragedy — three people across the street had been electrocuted to death, along with a preborn child, after a live wire fell on top of a vehicle in the driveway as they were attempting to get into it.
One of those individuals was a woman who was six months pregnant, while another was a man who was holding a baby boy. The third victim, a 15-year-old boy, had run outside the house trying to help before he, too, was electrocuted.
Noticing that the baby boy whom the man had been holding was still alive, Washington ran outside to help.
“I was concerned about the baby,” said Washington, who recognized the woman as her neighbor’s daughter. “Nobody was with the baby.”
Washington said she managed to get to the child by crouching low to avoid sliding on the ice into the wire, as had happened to the other victims. Though she touched the deceased male as she lifted the child off of his body, she was not harmed. The baby boy was unharmed as well.
“I grabbed the baby, I pulled him up, I was swaddling him, and I walked him up the hill,” she described during a press conference.
“I know some people might say it’s probably a dumb decision, but I don’t know, I just felt like I had to go get that baby,” she told KGW 8.
“We do have fortunately with us a toddler that is going to be able to thrive and do what they possibly can as they move forward,” said Portland Fire and Rescue spokesman Rick Graves. “And they are here, in part, because of the heroic acts of a member of our community.”
While Graves lauded Washington, he also noted that he couldn’t understand how neither she nor the child were electrocuted.
Ronald Briggs was the neighbor whose 21-year-old daughter, 15-year-old son, and preborn grandchild were killed in the incident; the fourth victim was the daughter’s boyfriend. “I have six kids. I lost two of them in one day,” Briggs said.
