"My son!"
Brian Myers was lying on the ground outside his burning home, screaming for his son: "My boy's in there!"
He'd laid his life on the line to save his son Landon's life.
As he screamed for his son, Myers collapsed on the ground; 30 percent of his body covered in 3rd-degree burns. The father had already rescued his other four children as the fire spread through the house.
"Brian's in there trying to get Landon out and I can't get him out," the boy's grandmother, Deborah Carter, recalled Charity Freeman, 39, frantically saying as she ran to Carter's home next door for help. "Brian's in there trying to get Landon out and I can't get him out."
Landon would not make it out alive. According to Polk County Fire Rescue, he died in the fire in the 3000 block of Sherertz Road. The home was destroyed.
Neighbor Gary Tyer tried to get into the home, too, but the heat was too intense. "I tried to back down the hallway," he recalled. "Couldn't face it. You just had to experience it." He went to the back of the home, but couldn't reach the boy there either.
Firefighters rushed into the home, believing they may still be able to find the boy, but the heat became too intense even for them and they were forced to evacuate the home without the boy.
It brought at least one firefighter to tears.
"Here's a situation where they felt that the life may still be viable, they risked everything," Polk County Fire & Rescue Deputy Chief Mike Linkins said, "and unfortunately, they weren't able to make that save."
Myers was airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center in critical condition.
The fire was first reported at 6 a.m., but it took firefighters more than an hour to bring the fire under control. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.