A 90-year-old woman has survived an incredible event after a small group of teenage boys came to her rescue one evening when her house rapidly caught fire.

Catherine Richie had been in the bathroom of her Sapulpa, Oklahoma home back in May when she suddenly noticed that her bedroom had gone up in flames.

Richie spent a few minutes trying to extinguish the flames before ceding to the flames and calling 911.

However, when she tried to evacuate the house, she discovered that she could not make it through the smoke.

All the while, four boys ranging in age from 14 to 17 years old were just leaving their friend’s place to go grab a drink at the convenience store. It was then that they noticed smoke coming from Richie’s house, they quickly jumped into action.

As one of the kids tried to get assistance from the other neighbors, the other three kids tried to break into the house from a number of different entrance points. 14-year-old Seth Byrd eventually was able to get in through the back door and found the woman lying on the ground. He picked her up and carried her outside.

One of Richie’s ten children, Missy Ritchie Nicholas, wrote a blog post praising the young men for their heroic action.

“Kids who are told about all the things they aren’t old enough to do saved the life of the most precious and beloved woman we know,” wrote Nicholas. “Young men who risked their own lives, their own safety, perhaps their good standing with their parents who might have chosen for them to do otherwise, and they carried my mother out of her burning home into the street, where fire trucks and ambulances would soon arrive.

“Thank you for your selfless acts of heroism and courage,” she added. “Thank you for not allowing this to be the tragic end to our mother’s amazing life. Thank you for staying with her, hugging her, and helping her feel less alone until we could get to her. Thank you for being the kind of young men who thought about another person above yourselves.”