Local man to be recognized after saving child from house fire

SCOTT CITY, Mo. (KBSI) –  A Scott City resident is being recognized for his quick actions that led to saving a little girls life.

On April 30, 2025, Luke McClellan was driving through Scott City on his way home when he passed a house engulfed in flames.

McClellan ultimately saved an 8-year-old little girl through a side window. Heartbreakingly a mother and son did not make it out of the fire.

Luke is being recognized for his heroic actions at Scott City’s City Hall on Monday May 19, 2025, at 7:00 pm.

McClellan says he does not see himself as a hero but as someone who was in the right place at the right time.

Heartbreakingly two lives were tragically lost, a mother and a son lost their lives in a house fire in Scott City but thanks to a man who just happen to be passing by it was two lives instead of three.

“What are you going to do, just stand there and watch? I knew they were in the house and the only thing I could do was try” says McClellan.

“My first thought was get inside. The front door was on fire so I couldn’t go through the front so I went through the back, and they have a privacy fence, and I had to take a couple of the planks off because I couldn’t get in and so I got in. The back door was locked so I couldn’t get in and the only thing I could think was to bust out windows” says McClellan.

McClellan then began busting out windows, but he says the smoke was so bad he couldn’t see anything. He then went to the side of the house to try getting in another way.

“There was a window there and I promise you god stopped me right there in my tracks and was like try” says McClellan and so there was a piece of wood I busted out that window, there was an animal cage, and I jumped up on the animal cage and it wasn’t as smokey. I couldn’t see in the room because it was smokey but not so bad and I stuck my face and chest in and just started screaming for anybody, does anybody hear me and that’s when Delanie the 8 year old girl screamed help me and I couldn’t see her it was pitch black and so I just started screaming to follow my voice and to come to me and she did.”  

Sadley Zena Paige and her baby boy Daxton did not make it out McClellan says he doesn’t see himself as a hero, but that he was leaning on his faith.

“God saved that little girl, I just let him use me to do it.” 

Paige left behind a husband and two children and McClellan says that’s where the focus should be now.

“It was the worst day of my life but who cares about me. I didn’t lose a child and a wife” says McClellan. “When I think about me I don’t want to think about me or what I think or I feel because Joel St. John lost his baby and his wife and honestly I’m thinking and praying about him, that he will be encouraged, that he will be uplifted and that he will find some type of closure in this and be able to move forward and take care of Delanie and Deagan and be the dad they need and personally I don’t want to be praised, I don’t want to take credit.” 

McClellan goes on to say he believes God just put him in the right place at the right time. 

Watch FOX23 News Tonight at 9 for more details on this story.