A hero mother is gone this weekend not by accident, but by choice. She looked at her burning home and did what mothers do: she went back for her child.
The tragic incident happened on Saturday. Bonnie Pierce, 38, had already made it out safely when fire tore through her duplex in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was out. She was safe. But a mother’s mind don’t rest easy when one of her babies is still inside. When Pierce realized her toddler, Grace, hadn’t made it out with her, she didn’t hesitate, she turned right back around and walked into that burning building.
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One of her other daughters had already saved herself, kicking out an air conditioning unit and climbing through the window to safety. But Grace was still trapped somewhere in that smoke and heat. So Bonnie went and found her.
When St. Paul firefighters finally cut through the “heavy fire, extreme heat and near-zero visibility” inside that first floor, they found something that stopped them cold. A firefighter lifting an unresponsive woman off the bedroom floor discovered a toddler tucked underneath her, Bonnie had used her own body as a shield, covering her daughter from the flames until rescue crews arrived.
Interim St. Paul Fire Chief Gregory Duren described the moment as firefighters searching the home found a woman, and when they went to move her, they found the baby she’d been protecting underneath.
Bonnie had gone roughly 15 minutes without oxygen and suffered burns across nearly half her body. She was rushed to the hospital fighting for her life, right alongside Grace. Two days later, on August 24, Bonnie passed away from her injuries.
Her family stood before cameras at St. Paul Fire Department headquarters and made sure the world knew who she was. Her sister, Jenny McGovern, said it best: “She died a hero and that’s what she’ll always be.”
Baby Grace remains hospitalized and was in critical condition, but family says she’s improving and is expected to make a full recovery.
Bonnie leaves behind four daughters and a grandson, a family now trying to figure out how to move forward without the woman who held them all together. A GoFundMe set up to help with funeral costs and Grace’s ongoing medical care has already pulled in thousands of dollars from strangers moved by her story, with the fundraiser page calling her sacrifice nothing short of the ultimate act of a mother’ss love.