HERO IN JAMAICA (GREAT STORY): 11-y-o Toni-Ann Miller to be honoured today....Toni-Ann Miller rushed into a burning building to save the lives of two children younger than herself....for her bravery and is to be conferred with a Badge of Honour for Gallantry at the National Honours and Awards Ceremony on the lawns of King's House today. PLEASE CONGRATULATE HER.

Monday, October 20, 2014 Jamaica Observer   

IT is a deed from which many would have shied away, but then only 10 years old, Toni-Ann Miller rushed into a burning building to save the lives of two children younger than herself.

Toni-Ann receiving her award from GG

Her own safety was the furthest thing from her mind when she quickly responded to the cries of a little boy who was trapped in a blazing house, thick billows of black smoke signalling that he was in serious danger.

A year later, she is being recognised for her bravery and is to be conferred with a Badge of Honour for Gallantry at the National Honours and Awards Ceremony on the lawns of King's House today.

Toni-Ann recalls that she was on her way home from school with friends in the Mount Hermon community of St Catherine, when they came upon the burning structure.

After rescuing the six-year-old boy, who came away unhurt, Toni-Ann, who knows the child asked him for his younger brother. Learning that he was still inside asleep, she re-entered the building to take the five-year-old boy to safety.

By this time, “half of the bed was burning”, Toni-Ann said.

The younger boy sustained minor burns to one of his arms.

Eleven-year-old Toni-Ann Miller 
will today be conferred with
 a Badge of Honour for Gallantry at the
 National Honours and Awards Ceremony 
to be held on the lawns of King’s House.

Toni-Ann’s cousin Judeen Cunningham, who is also her caregiver, says she is convinced that “Toni-Ann doesn't realise (the significance of) what she did”.

Recalling the account of an eyewitness, Cunningham says the concrete around the front door of the house gave way just as Toni-Ann emerged with the second child.

She says she's very proud of her cousin, who has been living with her since November of last year, and expressed amazement at the child’s act of heroism, quipping: “(I) myself wouldn't do that”.

The question on many people’s lips: How did she do it? “I saw my father doing it already,” the child says. more