I’m as bad as anybody else.  Sometimes I get into a lazy, stereotypical mindset. I start believing that most 17-year-old boys stay out late, wake up really late, and have only one thing on their mind.  I love it when I’m proven wrong.

Let me tell you what happened Thursday night.  Central High junior Jacob Gray and Ooltewah High junior Mason Chamberlain were riding around with a couple of friends. They drove by a house on Sims Harris Road, near Harrison.  They saw flames coming from the front of the house. There was no fire truck in sight.

Let me stop right here.  How many people, of any age, would have kept on driving and taken little, if any action?  Hopefully, most of us would at least call 9-1-1. But back to the story, now told from a different point of view.

16-year-old Brianna Dobbs, a Central High student was upstairs listening to music.  She thought she heard glass breaking, and then her cat’s ears started to perk up. “I began yelling for my stepdad,” Brianna said.  “I didn’t know what was going on.”  Brianna’s stepfather, Kenny Waldon soon discovered the fire in the front of the house, and tried in vain to put it out.

The next voices Brianna heard belonged to Jacob and Mason.  “Two guys were yelling, your house is on fire!  Everybody get out! I said, we’ve got to get my mom!”  Her mother, Kim Waldon couldn’t immediately be found.  Although Kim’s other daughter was at a friend’s house, she momentarily panicked and looked for her before remembering she was away.

Click here to read the rest of this guest blog post at David Carroll’s Chattanooga Radio & TV Blog!