On July 22, 2017, Deputy Todd Frank was sitting in his cruiser completing a report when a woman came running up yelling there was a fire in a nearby trailer and people were still inside. As Deputy Frank ran toward the area he could see smoke coming and alerted dispatch to send the fire department. Deputy Frank recalled it was chaotic when he arrived. “I started herding people together as swiftly as I could. It was a family of five, including a newborn,” explained Frank. A woman was trying to go back in the back door and there was heavy smoke rolling out. I grabbed her and told her she couldn’t go back in. She said her 11-year-old son was in there.” The boy had reportedly been outside but gone back in to get a pet. Deputy Frank went to the front door to try to get in, but found a sofa blocking his way. “The fire had started in the air conditioner, which caught the curtains on fire, then spread to the sofa, and they had tried to throw the sofa out the front door but it got stuck,” he explained. Deputy Frank then found a window and smashed it and began yelling for the boy. He saw the boy run past then disappear in the smoke. “He was scared. I was afraid he was going to get smoke inhalation.” When the boy ran by again, Deputy Frank reached inside and grabbed him and pulled him outside. “I did what any deputy would do under those circumstances,” Deputy Frank said. “Any of us would do the same thing.” Deputy Frank was pleased that the story had a happy ending. The whole family, including the pets, got out safely. But that hasn’t always been the case at the fires that Frank has gone to. At the time of the incident Deputy Frank had served the Kent County Sheriff’s Office for 22 years. Before then, he spent a few years with the Cedar Springs Police Department. His first week on the job, in the early 1990s, he went to the scene of a fire in the same mobile home park. He tried to save a baby that was inside. “She was already gone,” he said sadly. He wasn’t injured but was treated for smoke inhalation. During his last week with the Cedar Springs Police Department, there was another fire in Cedar Springs Mobile Estates. This time two people died in the fire. “For a long time I would hear a fire tone and just feel sick to my stomach,” he said. During his tenure with the KCSO, Frank has been a school resource officer in Kent City, done community policing, served on road patrol in the Cascade area, and a myriad of other duties. This is not first time Frank has been recognized for an action. He and another officer tackled a suicidal subject who was going to jump off the overpass on M57 that runs over US131. He received a commendation for that, too. According to the Life Saver award for the fire rescue, “It was the quick and decisive actions by Deputy Todd Frank that ultimately saved the young boy’s life.” But Frank doesn’t take all the credit for the fire rescue. “The fire department did a great job of putting the fire down,” he said. “I was just in the right place at the right time.”