Boy, 12, Drags 200-Pound Grandmother From House Fire

NASHVILLE, Tenn. —  A 12-year-old boy dragged his paralyzed, 200-pound grandmother from their burning house after she fell out of her wheelchair, authorities said.

“Anybody would have done what I did,” Mike Hanna said Thursday, recalling his actions last week in the fire that destroyed the home he shared with his grandmother, Mildred Inman, 65.

“I just did what I thought I was supposed to do. She’s my grandmother, and I love her,” the boy said.

The fifth-grader said he had just come home from school and put on his robe when he and his grandmother noticed smoke pouring into the house from the electrical switch box in the garage.

Mike grabbed the wheelchair and started to roll his grandmother out of the house, but she fell out “and the flames were all over us,” Inman said.

“I weigh about 200 pounds, and he couldn’t get me back in the wheelchair. He tried to drag me by my shoulders and couldn’t, so he took my feet and pulled me all the way out to the porch,” she said.