{"id":321993,"date":"2026-06-04T04:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321993\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T04:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T04:09:08","slug":"girl-reunites-with-man-who-saved-her-from-deadly-dallas-apartment-explosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/321993\/","title":{"rendered":"Girl reunites with man who saved her from deadly Dallas apartment explosion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly a week after a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/texas\/news\/dallas-apartment-fire-9th-street-oak-cliff\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">deadly explosion at the Clyde Apartments in Dallas&#8217; Oak Cliff neighborhood<\/a>, a 10\u2011year\u2011old girl who survived the blast has reunited with the man credited with saving her life.<\/p>\n<p>Vanessa, who lost her mother, Marisol Perez, and her 18\u2011month\u2011old brother in the explosion, met with Rodney Brown on Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The encounter was emotional as family members thanked Brown for pulling the child from the burning building.<\/p>\n<p>Rescuer describes instinctive response<\/p>\n<p>Brown said he acted on instinct when he saw the girl moments after hearing the first explosion from his nearby building. As he carried her across the street, a second blast erupted, and flames quickly spread through the structure.<\/p>\n<p>He attempted to return to help others trapped inside, but said the fire had already intensified.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I heard them inside asking for help. I can never forget that,&#8221; Brown said. &#8220;If I had enough time to go back, I would have dug my way in.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Family mourns loss while celebrating survival<\/p>\n<p>Family members described the past week as a nightmare as they continue to grieve the loss of Perez and her young son. Vanessa&#8217;s birthday fell on Monday, and relatives said Brown&#8217;s actions enabled her to reach the age of 10.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You made it possible for her to be ten years old today,&#8221; her aunt said. &#8220;It would have been an even bigger tragedy not to have any memory of my sister.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rescuer rejects hero label<\/p>\n<p>Brown rejected the label of hero, saying he was simply grateful the girl survived.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t consider myself a hero,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m just happy she&#8217;s alive and with her family.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly a week after a deadly explosion at the Clyde Apartments in Dallas&#8217; Oak Cliff neighborhood, a 10\u2011year\u2011old&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,13034,430,27],"class_list":["post-321993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-explosion","tag-north-texas","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}