Culver City High School student Kyle Hiroto Lorrin was honored April 5 by Mayor Micheal O’Leary and Culver City Fire Chief David White for his quick and effective response to a fire inside his neighbor’s home.
In August-September 2015, Lorrin, 17, heard an alarm at his neighbor’s house. Thinking it was a burglar alarm, Lorrin went to the home armed with a baseball bat.
But when he got there, he saw the door open and walked in. Inside, he saw a fire in the laundry room of the house and the four occupants panicking after the two fire extinguishers they had were not effective against the fire.
Seeing that the fire was still going strong, Lorrin hustled the four occupants and the dog they had been dog sitting, out of the house and onto another neighbor’s porch.
Lorrin then returned to his home to retrieve his own fire extinguisher, but by the time he returned to the burning home, the fire department was arriving on to the scene.
Figuring that the fire department could handle the fire, Lorrin began the process of calming down the occupants, which included the elderly dog-sitting couple and their two grandchildren.
Kyle then contacted the owners.
“I informed the owners of the type of fire it was,” Lorrin said. “I then handed my phone over to the fire department so they could keep in contact with the owners in order to give them regular updates.”
Lorrin’s quick response to such a traumatic event is something that Lorrin’s mom Masako said was what she would expect of her son.
“It wasn’t surprising,” Masako said. “I was glad that he was able to do that.”
Lorrin’s father Mark and his older brother Erik have always done similar things when the situation called for it.
“A few years ago, my brother took care of a kid at the Culver City Skate Park,” Lorrin said. “A skateboard had flown in the air after hitting a ramp and hit a kid in the head. My brother started treating the kid for bleeding.”
Recently Lorrin was selected to represent Culver City as a Cadet at the United States Air Force Academy in June in Colorado Springs, Colo. where he will become part of the class of 2020.
Appointments to military service academies are highly competitive, requiring a nomination from the candidate’s Congressional representative, senator, or the vice president of the United States.
The candidate’s academic, community service, and athletic record are taken into consideration when appointments are made.
Lorrin was a special case as he won both the state-wide nomination from U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein to the U.S. Air Force Academy and the district nomination from U.S. Representative Karen Bass to both the U.S. Air Force Academy and U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Lorrin intends to pursue a degree in aeronautical engineering.