Brothers put in post-July 4th hero work
Yates players alerted homeowners of garage fire, also helped save vehicles, mementos
Brodrick and Brandon Brown don’t think twice when it comes to saving a life.
It was close to 2 a.m. when the brothers and Yates football players were cleaning up fireworks from an Independence Day celebration and they saw a neighbor’s garage on fire.
Brodrick, Brandon and their mother Crystal McCormick rushed to the home of Chaun Tatum-Williams and husband Kirk Williams, frantically ringing the doorbell and knocking on windows in hopes of alerting the couple.
The couple groggily awoke from a deep sleep, thinking it was their oldest daughter, who had parked her car at the home before a night out with friends. Tatum-Williams called her daughter, though, and realized it wasn’t her at the door.
Tatum-Williams rushed downstairs, opening the door to her neighbors alerting them the garage was on fire. Soon, Tatum-Williams was welcomed by smoke after running through the kitchen to enter the garage from the back of the house.
The couple’s two cars were in the garage as well as Kirk’s collection of sports memorabilia and valuables and possessions from Chaun’s deceased mother and grandmother.
Tatum-Williams pressed a button for the garage door to open automatically, only to see it stop about two feet off the ground after an electrical box blew up and power shut off.
Brodrick and Brandon were already there, attempting to lift the door from the outside but crawling inside instead to help open it manually. Brandon hopped on top of a car in one leap to pull the lever down to allow the door to be opened. Brodrick pushed the door up.
The couple and their cars were out safely, but an emotional Tatum-Williams ran back into the blazing garage, hoping to save possessions from her mother and grandmother. Brodrick, Brandon and McCormick ran back in with her to help save what she could, which ended up being journals from her mother, 8-millimeter videos and her daughter’s baby pictures.
The brothers then helped Kirk unravel a water hose so they could try to douse the fire. Fire trucks and emergency medical technicians already were on the way.
It was later determined as an electrical fire, which did not reach the home. The couple owns two dogs and had the TV on and the volume up to help drown out the noise from the holiday fireworks in the surrounding area. Tatum-Williams says, otherwise, the knocks on the door might have been heard sooner. But the dogs and both families were not injured or wounded.
Making the moment scarier, though, is the fact the couple had an 27-gallon air compressor and 5-gallon containers of premium gas at the front of the garage. Kirk does custom auto repairs as a hobby.
“I mean, those boys walked right past them like nothing,” said Tatum-Williams, who hopes to spread word of the boys’ bravery as far and wide as she can. “I’m speechless each time I think about it.”
The couple knows the brothers well, often seeing them play on the street, hearing “not a curse word” and “they will ‘Yes, ma’am’ you to death,” TatumWilliams said.
“I don’t think African American youth get that spotlight that often, certainly not in the heroic manner in what they did unselfishly,” she added. “It was blazing, and it was completely engulfed in smoke and they were in there going ‘What you want me to get next?’ ”
It’s not the first time Brodrick, in particular, had been called into action.
The brothers were staying with their aunt one night at an apartment complex where a May shooting at a nearby block party took place on Scott Street near Barberry Drive in Sunnyside. Police said five people were shot at the party of about 200 to 300 people.
Brodrick helped one of the victims, keeping pressure applied on the wound while finding an EMT.
“Didn’t even think twice and he did the right thing by reacting first and thinking about it later,” a proud McCormick said of both experiences.
Brodrick, who is a sophomore quarterback for the Lions, says it’s putting lessons from his mother into action.
“It comes from my mama because if anybody needs help in our family or anything, she’s going to help them out,” Brodrick said.
Brandon, a junior linebacker for the Lions added: “We’re goodhearted people. That’s how we were raised.”