Firefighter Who Caught 3-Year-Old Tossed From Burning Building Honored

The Georgia firefighter who caught a 3-year-old girl tossed out of a burning building earlier this month has been honored for his heroism.

Captain Scott Stroup was one of 60 members of the DeKalb Fire Rescue in Decatur applauded for rescuing more than 100 people, including several young children, from an apartment fire earlier this month.

“It's very humbling to be a part of this,” Stroup told WGCL. “I can't say enough just how thankful I am to work for DeKalb County Fire Department.”

It is thanks to his quick thinking that 3-year-old Destiny Ragland is alive today.

A helmet-cam video of the rescue showed Stroup catching Destiny upside-down after her dad tossed her off a rescue ladder from a third floor balcony. Stroup twisted his knee after making the life-saving grab.

“Actually getting to see that little girl smile and play with her siblings, wow,” Stroup said. “That's all I needed right there.”

Captain Jackie Peckrul, a mom of triplets, was also honored for catching a baby while on a ladder.

“Everybody did so incredible and every day, our firefighters do so incredible and it was so nice to see everybody get appreciated,” Peckrul said.

In an interview with Inside Edition earlier this month, she explained she was only supposed to be helping the family get down the ladder.

“I got about halfway and I look up and somebody was dropping a baby to me,” she recalled. “I never ever want to see a mother or a father lose their children."

To recognize the fire team’s heroism, Jan. 23 was officially proclaimed DeKalb County Fire Rescue Day.

“There is a brotherhood, there is a sisterhood between these firefighters,” Chief Darnel Fullum said. “Captain Stroup even said if he wasn't there, he knows someone else would have been right there and done the exact same thing that he did, and that's what they do. It's a team. It's teamwork.”

RELATED STORIES