Grand Prairie boy honored for life-saving efforts

A news story several years ago inspired a 12-year-old boy from Grand Prairie to help others. Now city leaders there are honoring him for his potentially live-saving work.

Hector Montoya says it started four years ago, when he heard about a mother and her little girl died in a house fire.
 
“I felt really heartbroken to know that they didn’t have smoke detectors in their house and they didn’t have an alert that the fire was coming,” he said.

He’d been saving up for a Playstation, but used his money instead to buy smoke detectors for people in need.

“A lot of rental houses and a lot of apartments too don’t have the proper checking for a smoke detector and the landlords don’t check them that much.”

He’s now given away more than 10,000 smoke detectors thanks do donations from the community.

Hector’s grandmother contacted FOX 4 and said he had raised so much money and had so many smoke detectors, he needed to find other places to give them away.

Irving Fire Battalion Chief J.D. Porter says there’s no doubt his efforts will save lives, “I lost an aunt because she didn’t get out of a house without a smoke detector. This is an amazing, amazing life-saver.”

Hector is now working on a children’s book about fire safety, which he hopes to have published next year. He was even surprised with a check Saturday to help make that happen.