‘THIS IS THE HERO’
Boy, 8, becomes youngest recipient of fire service commendation
RJ Pena can hardly sit still. He bounces on the couch of the family ’s temporary rental home. Then he’s quiet as his eyes rest on a subtitled TV drama on in the background. He playfully boxes with his grandfather. Then he shows off his backflips on the bed in the next room and his hip-hop moves in the living room. At one point, he stops to tenderly hug his great-grandmother.
The typical energy and attention span of an eight-year-old boy.
But something happened this past year, when RJ was just seven, that put the Grade 3 St. Mary’s elementary student into a class of his own.
On a Saturday afternoon in June, he quickly and calmly jumped into action when an emergency happened while he was at home with his great-grandparents at the family’s East Vancouver home, shared by four generations.
“I was playing with my games and I heard the smoke alarm and I smelled smoke,” said RJ. “I went downstairs to go check out what it was.”
He ran back upstairs to tell Felicisima Aquino, 89, and Luis Aquino, 98, that there was a fire in the home the Aquino family has lived in for decades. He told them they ’d have to get out of the house fast.
“But she (Felicisima) didn’t believe me and she also had to go downstairs and check,” he said.
RJ helped her out of the house and on the way out grabbed the cordless landline from the charger to call 911.
But “he (Luis) was still inside the house and he was yelling,” said RJ.
A neighbour, Landon Thatcher, immediately ran into the house that was filled with black smoke and rescued the Second World War vet, who immigrated from the Philippines decades earlier.
Everyone got out safely, but the family’s home was destroyed by the fire (caused by faulty wiring, the fire department later determined).
If not for RJ’s calm thinking, the day could have ended tragically.
“This is the hero,” said his grandfather Jesus Aquino.
RJ and Thatcher were honoured with citizen commendations for their “courageous” actions from Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services in a ceremony in late October with his entire class, teacher and school principal in attendance.
RJ was the youngest recipient of a commendation from the fire department, which included a certificate, a medal and a face-to-face meeting with then-mayor Gregor Robertson.
“It’s incredible he had the concentration and the clarity to do what he did while the house was on fire,” said VFRS Capt. Jonathan Gormick.
“I saw the video of the fire,” he said. “Not a lot of adults would be able to do what he did in the circumstances. Not only did he get her (his great-grandmother) out of the house, he went outside to call 911.”
RJ was also able to tell Thatcher where his great-grandfather was in the house and did everything “absolutely” as he was supposed to, said Gormick.
“Getting the people out of danger and getting help while he’s outside,” he said.
RJ’s mother Abigail Aquino, who had gone to the gym that day — where she got a call from her son telling her their house was on fire — is proud of her son for remembering to call 911 and to recite the address and remaining collected enough to do so.
The loss of the house has put the family in limbo as they live in a rental one block from the fire while a new house is built on the lot.
And the fire may have changed RJ’s plans for what he wants to be when he grows up.
Abigail said he used to talk about becoming a police officer.
Now he wants to be a firefighter because at a call-out, “the police aren’t there first, the firefighters are,” he said. “I learned that in kindergarten.”
It’s incredible he had the concentration and the clarity to do what he did while the house was on fire.
CAPT. JONATHAN GORMICK, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services