Teen jumps from second story window to escape house fire

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Imagine looking out your second story window to alley below and knowing its life or death.
 
"I just jumped," said Thomas Locke, who leaped from a second story of a house during a fire. "My back, it felt like I was about to catch on fire."

Thomas Locke doesn't have to imagine, the 13-year-old lived it and has the scars to prove it.

There are still shards of glass in the alley which fell from a second story window. That window was punched out by him.

"I couldn't feel anything," Thomas said. "I didn't feel anything so I just broke it."

All of this started at about 3 a.m. on March 31 at a house on Euclid on Detroit's west side. Thomas woke to the sound of his mother holding his newborn baby brother Alex.

"She was just yelling get out, you have to get out the house," Locke said.

He was separated from his family by a wall of smoke a fire somehow started in the kitchen.

"I was terrified," his mom Astrid said. "I was helpless, like weak. I couldn't go through the smoke and get him."

After getting her own mother and her baby to safety, Astrid Locke went to the side of the house to catch her 13-year-old hanging out his bedroom window.

"You have to jump, now," Astrid said. "The fire was in the kitchen and it could have blown up or anything."

And he did.

"I jumped two stories and I didn't break even one bone," Thomas said.

But not just to save his own life.

"I guess the main reason I jumped out the window was for Alex really," Thomas said. "I had to be here.

"I have a lot of things to lose and family wasn't going to be one of them."

This family has each other and they know that's really what is most important. But as they go forward they know they will need help too.

"The whole upstairs burnt to a crisp," Thomas said.

Thomas started a GoFundMe page if you can help. CLICK HERE to donate.