Nick Bostic, a former pizza deliveryman whose daring rescue of four children from a house fire was captured on heart-pounding body-camera footage, told Fox News Digital that he was home with his girlfriend when he found out Donald Trump Jr. re-posted the more than two-year-old video this week.
The president-elect’s son argued that Bostic should have been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom – not the likes of Hillary Clinton and George Soros, who President Biden presented the nation’s highest civilian honor to Sunday.
"This guy deserves the presidential medal of freedom… Not the clowns like Soros and the others who got it from Biden this week," Trump Jr. wrote on X, sharing the July 11, 2022, footage showing a home in Lafayette, Indiana, completely engulfed in flames. Elon Musk responded to the re-post, with one word: "Yeah."
As firefighters scrambled onto the scene, Bostic had already been inside the home and guided an 18-year-old woman with a baby and two 13-year-old girls to safety. He went back inside to rescue the remaining 6-year-old girl left behind, maneuvering through thick smoke and intense heat before he found the girl in a separate bedroom and scooped her up.
He punched through an upstairs window and jumped out headfirst, turning his body to try to land on his back and cushion the blow for the girl to land on his stomach, Bostic told Fox News Digital.
The video shows Bostic running toward a firefighter with the girl in his arms. He handed her off and then immediately collapsed onto the sidewalk.
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First responders told him he needed to move further away from the house, and he soon sprawled out on a nearby lawn. As medics worked on him, Bostic asked, "Is the baby, OK? Please tell me that baby’s OK."
A police officer could be heard assuring him, "Yeah, yeah. You did good, dude!"
"You know, even though it was hard for me to breathe and stuff, it was so relaxing. And then, you know, knowing the girl was OK.… After the officer told me she was 100% fine, I just pretty much gave in right there to whatever was going to happen to me," Bostic told Fox News Digital, recalling that moment. "You know, if I was not going to make it, so be it. But man, if I wasn't going to make it, I was going to die happy, you know?"
In an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday, Bostic reacted to the newfound attention from President-elect Trump's eldest son, as well as Elon Musk.
"I was at home when I got the message from somebody. That Donald J. Trump Jr. had retweeted, you know, that video of me and I thought it was the craziest thing ever," Bostic said. "Me and my girlfriend looked it up and we both found the post and then she went into the comments…. Someone else had reached out to me about it and said Elon commented on it. And so she went. She's like, ‘What? No way.’ We both were."
"So she finds it first, he commented, 'Yeah.’ So a gentleman like that, coming from him, that's all that man needs to say. ‘Yeah,’ like, that's probably a million words in one like that guy with what he does nowadays and what he's doing for the planet," Bostic added. "To even get a yeah from him. Absolutely amazing. And then to get recognition from the man, the man. You know what I mean? President Trump's son. It's crazy. It's mind-blowing. It's mind-boggling."
Describing himself as a "die-hard Trump supporter," Bostic said he was optimistic about the new administration. "Am I Team Trump? All the way, baby. I'm Team Trump," he said.
"He is really, really familiar with having a bunch of zeros in his bank account. And right now, with the economy and how things are, we need somebody that's going to be our leader. And that's good with numbers like that, you know, and because we can't afford to make errors and take chances on someone that's still learning," Bostic said. "We're like Defcon four, you know what I mean? Like right now it's like we're in the red."
"Everybody deserves a chance at living a good life," Bostic added.
The night of the fire, Bostic told Fox News Digital, he had gotten into a "silly fight" with his girlfriend. Bostic said he was off duty but still wearing his pizza delivery shirt when he decided to go for a drive to clear his head. On his way back, he spotted the blaze. The fact he was there to help is something he attributed to divine intervention.
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"I'm a firm believer in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I feel like he put me there at the right place at the right time," Bostic said. "My whole life I didn't understand what my purpose was. I never fit in anywhere really."
"I tried taking my life a few times. Eventually, after like the third time, I just laughed about it and said, ‘All right, God, you win. It ain’t my time,'" Bostic shared with Fox News Digital of his time after high school. "So I stopped hurting my body and that's when I kind of, it kind of kicked in. Like, I think that was like God saying that I've got a bigger, greater purpose."
Realizing that he had left his phone at home that night, and after attempting to flag down a passing car that didn’t stop, Bostic said he ran around the back of the house on fire and entered through an unlocked door. Fearing he could be shot if he was mistaken as an intruder, he shouted repeatedly that the house was on fire. He soon found the 18-year-old, the teen girls and the baby.
When Bostic turned around to rescue the 6-year-old girl, he recalled how the fire had already torn through the master bedroom and the hallway as he was met with "this incredible wall of black, gray, mucky smoke."
"It’s just like putting your foot into an oven. So I take a step back up. I'm scared at that point, you know? And then I hear – I hear a cry, a scream, cry," Bostic said. "I didn't think or nothing, I just went in there. It was like just mentally throwing myself in front of the of the train, you know, and I doubled my shirt over my mouth for a filter. And I closed my eyes, and I followed her sounds and I picked her up in my arms."
Bostic said he spent several days in the hospital, resulting in him losing his job as a pizza deliveryman due to missed time from work.
Since then, the now 27-year-old said he’s worked as a security guard and as a mechanic. He also runs his own seasonal lawn care business – something he’s driven to make successful for his nearly 2-year-old son.
After his daring fire rescue in 2022, Bostic said the fire department personally handed him an application, but he’s hesitant to join, partly because he wants time with his young son.
As for Biden’s controversial picks to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Bostic offered them congratulations.
"I don't have a perfect track history record or whatever either, you know?" Bostic said. "It's not always about what you did in your past. It's about what you do and make of your life in the future…. It is what it is…. I'm proud of them. Happy for them. And that's pretty much it."
He argued that 9/11 first responders and law enforcement, as well as members of the military, were more deserving of accolades.
"I'm just a common citizen," Bostic said. "It’s not my place to judge something like that about myself. You know, and if people feel like I deserve it, I'm more than honored to take it… I’m speechless."
With the renewed attention online, Bostic said he attempted a small fundraiser for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital on Instagram Live and wants to continue to pay it forward.
As a child, Bostic said a PVC pipe went through one of his eyes while playing with a friend, and St. Jude reconstructed that eye, which he kept but he cannot see out of.
"I feel like I've been blessed a million times over," Bostic said. "This time I think it's time to start giving back."
