Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Young hero rescues family

A hero is the one who comes to participate in life courageously, according to Joseph Campbell.

Campbell, in "Power of Myth", said the hero's sphere of action is not in the transcendent but here, now, in the field of time.

He further stated a hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than themself.

Age and gender don't matter when it comes to being heroic. Neither does physical strength nor intellect.

Such a person exists in Prescott today.

The heroic event occurred at about 11 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 22, when a fire broke out in the home of Dennis and Pam Hopson, at 339 Greenlawn. Dennis Hopson, his son, Trent, and daughter, Taylor, were in the house at the time.

The smoke alarm woke Taylor, age six, up. She smelled the smoke, realized what was going on and remembered a lesson taught at an honor roll assembly at Prescott Elementary School  stop, drop and roll. She crawled outside, but noticed her father and brother were still inside.

Ignoring her own safety, and fear, Taylor went back into the house and woke her brother up. Trent, 18, is mentally challenged. She said he didn't want to go outside because it was cold and he was only in his boxers. So, she found keys to the family car and started it to get it warm for Trent.

Her next course of action was to go back into the house a second time, wake her father up and get him out of the house. However, Dennis Hopson fought the kitchen fire, getting it out  temporarily. He suffered second degree burns on his right arm, from the shoulder to the wrist, and his right leg, from ankle to calf.

Though Dennis Hopson managed to get the fire out, it flared up again Sunday morning. The Prescott Fire Department responded to the double-wide trailer and put it out.

According to the PFD report, the fire originated on a cookstove from a pan being left on it. Most of the kitchen was destroyed by the fire.

Pam Hopson said there was little water damage and the kitchen will have to be completely rewired. "We got off lucky," she said.

The kitchen, she said, was totaled as the fire department had to knock down parts of the ceiling to fight the fire.

According to Pam Hopson, Dennis was in a room near the kitchen, while Trent and Taylor were in another part of the house. Dennis was partially overcome by the smoke, but his daughter's quick thinking helped save his life and get him into the fresh air, before he began battling the flames.

When asked about the ordeal, Taylor said she learned about fires at an honor roll assembly at PES. "I remembered, and I won't forget it now."

"She's my little hero," Pam Hopson said, adding her husband is being treated in Texarkana for his burns.

"I was totally scared," Taylor said when asked about going back inside the burning structure. This was followed by statements made by true heroes, "I couldn't leave anybody in there."

The precocious six-year-old is in Cheryl Taylor's first grade class at PES.