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By Micha Green, AFRO Washington, D.C. Editor, [email protected]
Last Wednesday about 160 residents were displaced when the Arthur Capper Senior Building, a Southeast, D.C. senior housing complex, caught on fire. Despite losing their homes there were no lives lost.
One of the senior survivors was 73-year-old Bettye Carter- who has D.C. firefighter Da’Von McCrae to thank for her life. On September 23 she got to show her appreciation to her hero for the first time after the blaze.
Cell phone video captured McCrae, 21, guiding Carter down a ladder, step-by-step, as he rescued her from the fourth-story of a burning building. McCrae, with just a year on the job, is the son of fallen firefighter Lt. Kevin McCrae, who lost his life in the line of duty in 2015.
Yet even with the history of his father’s untimely death, nothing stopped McCrae from going to save the residents in the senior complex. When he went to rescue Carter he said, “”I’m not gonna let nothing happen to you, so if you go down, I go down,” he told WJLA.
The two went down and the video of the rescue went viral, with several people championing the 21-year-old as a local hero.
When Carter went to meet her hero in person on Sunday, she showered him with thanks and kind words.
“You saved both of us,” she told McCrae while shaking his hand. The video of their reunion was filmed and shared by the D.C. Fire Department Twitter account.
“I’ll never, ever forget you,” Carter added to McCrae handing him a card.
Bettye Carter reunites with Firefighter Da’Von McRae, who safely guided her 4 stories down a portable ladder at the Capper Senior Housing complex fire. Firefighter McRae is the son of Lt. Kevin McRae, who lost his life in the line of duty May 6th, 2015.
— DC Fire and EMS (@dcfireems) September 23, 2018
Even with the happy ending for the lives of McCrae, Carter and the other residents, hundreds remain displaced and firefighters are still working to determine the cause of the fire.
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