The locker room at Edna High School should be loud - yelling players, popping pads, high school playoff time in Texas.
Edna's Cowboys have a big playoff game Saturday and the locker room here is strangely silent. The first locker on the left, #50's locker, is untouched.
'He loved what he did. Loved it,' Chris Placios is the teams center, faced off everyday in practice against #50 Noah Ortiz.
Ortiz was a sophomore playing defensive tackle as a starter on the varsity team.
He was a young star in the making on the field, but he was a hero in his final moments as flames raged through his family's small home.
'He had his two sisters trying to get them out and did not make it out the door with them,' said Karen Fojtik, who is a friend of the Ortiz family.
Noah was 15, his younger brothers Julian and Nicholas, 13 and 9, his sisters Ariana and Liliana 6 and 5 - all 5 of them are dead.
Every school in this small district has been hit with the unthinkable loss. The district Superintendent Robert O'Connor got the call before school began, 'As a parent to think about losing one child is horrific but to go to five kids is almost unspeakable.'
Small towns are like a big family and this loss is hitting Edna hard, 'How terrible a tragedy. Off the scale sad. Off the scale of everything,' said Cindy Baker, who lives next door to the house that burned.
Ashley Sanchez is the great aunt of the children killed, 'I can't. I can't. My mind is just racing. I can't even think. I don't know.'
The State Fire Marshall's Office is leading the investigation and it is not yet releasing any possible cause for the fire, but it spread very quickly, trapping the children in the back of the home.
Annabel Paralez is the mother of all six children and she was critically injured, cut by glass breaking through a window to get out.
Johnny Hernandez is her boyfriend and father of three of the children.
Hernandez also made it out with the youngest child Johnny Hernandez III.
Back at the high school, the Cowboys were playing for pride, for Edna and now this football family plays for #50.
Chris Palacios faced off with Ortiz every day in practice,'It is going to be hard. It is not going to be the same without him out there. But we are going to go out and practice for him. And we are gonna go out Saturday and play for him and we are gonna win it for him.'
One big family with a bigger loss than any thought possible.
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Posted by Unknown on Tuesday, November 25, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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