A pit bull named Ace is being hailed as a hero for licking the face of a deaf, sleeping 13-year-old Indianapolis boy to alert him the house was on fire.
Indianapolis Fire Department Capt. Rita Reith says Nick Lamb was home alone and sleeping without his hearing aids when the fire began Wednesday.
She says Ace licked Nick's licked his face until the boy awoke to find the house filing with smoke. The boy quickly covered his nose and mouth with his T-shirt and fled the house without suffering any injuries.
"I couldn't hear anything because I had my cochlear implants off. ... My dog Ace smelled it," Lamb told the Indianapolis Star. "I just wanted to get out."
The boy told firefighters that this was the first summer he was old enough to stay home alone and that he had returned from summer camp just three days earlier.
Firefighters estimated damage to the home at $175,000.
—The Associated Press contributed
