Rescuer Learned Techniques From TV Show

Lessons she learned from a television show calmed LeTresa Davis enough to lend a helping hand to a screaming mother and her badly burned son Friday afternoon.

Davis rushed across the street to 2422 N. Winston and plunged Bobby Hughes into a cold bath, while his mother, Judy, called 911.

The boy had accidentally set himself on fire with a lighter.

Davis poured cups of cold water over the 9-year-old’s upper torso until medics arrived, techniques she learned watching “Rescue 911.”

“We sit down whenever I can remember - which is pretty often - and we watch it,” Davis said Saturday. “We even watch reruns.”

Bobby was rushed to Sacred Heart Medical Center, and later was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He was listed in serious condition Saturday night at Harborview with burns over 40 percent of his body.

When Davis arrived, Judy Hughes was doing the best she could to juggle the phone and her injured son with her burned hands. Davis said Judy Hughes burned her hands when she pulled a flaming shirt off of Bobby.

“She was crying and hysterical - which I can understand,” Davis said. “To see your child burned would be awful.”

All that remains of the shirt is a palm-size piece near a black spot in the grass in front of the small tan and blue house.

Davis said Bobby never cried during the ordeal, despite being burned from “right below the belly button all the way up.”

Bobby and his 6-year-old brother, Nathan, were playing with the lighter in the back yard, Davis said.

Her daughter, Misty, 10, yelled to her that a neighbor needed help.

“She told me he was on fire and I said, ‘Are you sure?”’ Davis said.

When she looked out the door, Davis saw Bobby running around the front yard with his shirt on fire.

“I got to the porch and his shirt was still burning in big flames,” said Davis, who moved to the neighborhood just three weeks ago.”I think he was so brave to be burned so badly and never cry,” Davis said.

, DataTimes