They Partied at Prom, Stopped for Heroics on Way Home

There's a lot that parents dread about prom: the drunken escapades, the after-party hanky-panky, the final tab after the dresses, tuxes, limos, and tickets have all been purchased. The parents of one group of teens in upstate New York, however, should have only pride after their kids helped save a family from a fire after the official school event was over. NBC News reports that 17-year-old Aiden Kane; his girlfriend, Morgan Randall; and their friends Donato Jellenich and Tyler Sojda had departed the junior prom at Marcy's Whitesboro High School on May 17 and were headed for a friend's house when they passed a home whose garage was in flames.

At first the kids thought the blaze may have been a post-prom bonfire, but as they neared it, they realized that wasn't what was going on. "Your house is on fire! Your house is on fire!" Aiden can be heard yelling in CNN video of the teens frantically alerting the father inside the property's home with his two daughters. When one girl finally opens the front door and tells the teens that their dad is calling the police, Aiden instructs them: "You guys gotta get out!"

Donato, meanwhile, was busy calling 911. "You're OK, you're OK, you're OK," Aiden told the girls as he shepherded them to safety behind a nearby car, right as two loud explosions took place, per the Observer-Dispatch. Morgan, meanwhile, helped soothe the sobbing girls. A family rep says the family members and their dog all made it out safely and without injury, per CNN. A local fire department soon arrived on the scene and handled the fire.

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"The family was safely evacuated before flames could reach the main structure of the home," Jared Pearl, chief of the Maynard Fire Department, said in a statement, per NBC. "Thanks to Aiden's leadership and the team's quick response, a potential tragedy was averted." Aiden, for his part, says his father was indirectly behind his heroics. "My dad was a police chief and EMS chief, and I've even been on a few calls with him," he tells the Observer-Dispatch. "I knew we had to get the family out, especially when the garage was exploding." (More uplifting news stories.)