AJ Slater recovers at Tampa General Hospital. (Photo courtesy AJ Slater)
TAMPA | AJ Slater, an LGBTQ+ construction worker based in Lakeland, is recovering at Tampa General Hospital after saving a 3-year-old boy from a burning vehicle.
According to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, Kody Wills was driving his two young children around 5 p.m. on Nov. 7 when his sedan left a Lakeland roadway, collided with a tree and caught fire. Slater happened upon the scene while driving home.
“I noticed the fire and immediately slammed on the brakes, threw my car in park and started running across the road,” Slater says. “Then I heard the driver screaming, ‘Help me! Save my kids!’”
Slater says Wills, who according to local reports is now recovering from a broken ankle, was on the ground near his vehicle. His 3-year-old son Walker and 5-year-old daughter JoLynn were trapped inside with the doors closed.
“I opened the back door and smoke came barreling out,” Slater recalls. “There were flames in the front seat and all I could see were knees in front of me in a car seat, so I grabbed the kid and pulled on him, fighting with the car seat to get him out. Then I noticed there was another little person in another car seat.
“I finally got his undone, took him out and put him on the ground,” he continues. “I went back into the car but this time the flames were halfway to the backseat and on the roof, dropping down on me as the little girl was waking up and crying.”
Slater suffered significant burns across his hands, forearms, back, face and ears at that point.
“I was just talking to her, trying to get the car seat undone. I started snatching on her body hoping she would slide out, but that wouldn’t work and at that time, the whole car was on fire,” he says. “I just … I had to let go.”
The child did not survive. Slater says he carried her brother to the road and dragged Wills farther from his vehicle before the three were transported to the hospital for treatment. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
In the days since, a GoFundMe was launched by Slater’s mother to help with his recovery. He doesn’t have health insurance and lost his home and the construction work he’d secured in Hurricane Helene.
“We are hoping by doing this he will have some money to cover medical bills, living expenses, and therapy for the trauma he witnessed,” the fundraiser reads. “I don’t think you can ever really get over experiencing something like this. Our heart is broken for the family who experienced such an unthinkable tragedy.”
The site also links to a fundraiser for Logan Deines, the children’s mother, which was launched to help with burial expenses and more. Slater says “she is a wonderful mom and a single mother that needs a lot of help. She still has a little boy she has to take care of.”
As of Nov. 15, Deines has received over $29,500 in support. Slater has received over $31,500.
“I’m just overwhelmed and extremely thankful,” he says. “Knowing what’s going on in this world right now, it means a lot to me, because I’m an openly gay male and I’ve had to fight for my equality in the jobs that I seek and the environment that I’m in.
“I want people to really see that you never know — you could be the one trapped in a car and have a gay person come and save you,” Slater continues. “The person you hated, that you judged so much, the one that you picked on in school. The one that couldn’t choose who he was, because I didn’t choose to be gay.”
To support AJ Slater’s recovery, visit his GoFundMe. Visit Deines’ GoFundMe here.
