MARYSVILLE — Mikayla DiGrazia is a brave little girl.
Redheaded 6-year-old Mikayla, of Sultan, hugged her new firefighter teddy bear Sunday afternoon as firefighters in uniform and reporters with cameras gathered around her at a Marysville fire station.
The fire department threw a party for Mikayla, who called 911 when her grandmother collapsed at her Marysville home last November. The girl was 5 years old at the time.
“I’m just so proud,” said Mikayla’s mother, Julie DiGrazia, 39. “She’s a special little girl.”
The girl’s grandmother Jennifer DiGrazia, 58, remembers that day in November when Mikayla saved her life. Jennifer DiGrazia had just moved to Marysville. The two had been making cookies and coloring together. It was time to put Mikayla to bed when Jennifer DiGrazia hit the floor.
“If she hadn’t been there, I would not be standing here today,” Jennifer DiGrazia said.
She now calls Mikayla her special little hero.
Jennifer DiGrazia said Sunday she was still amazed at how calm and composed her granddaughter had been.
Mikayla called her home phone number first, but her parents didn’t know grandma’s new address. “We told her: ‘You gotta be calm and be a big girl. You gotta call 911,’” Julie DiGrazia said.
Mikayla learned her home phone number in preschool. The couple taught her how and when to call 911 because of Julie DiGrazia’s medical issues. “She’s very familiar with that,” Julie DiGrazia said.
It’s fairly rare for emergency operators to get calls from 5-year-olds, said Rachel Hughes, the fire dispatcher who kept Mikayla on the line.
“She was so brave,” Hughes said.
When firefighters took Mikayla for a ride on a fire truck, she wasn’t afraid, either.
“This is pretty special for her, I’m sure,” said Barbara Harris, the girl’s kindergarten teacher at Sultan Elementary.
Mikayla is great to have in class, Harris said. “She’s a good girl. A very smart girl,” Harris said.
Harris proudly watched Sunday as Mikayla received a special certificate, a red toy firefighter’s helmet and a teddy bear from the Marysville Fire Department.
Mikayla’s parents described her as an outgoing little girl who likes to play, do crafts, and go fishing and camping. “She’s got the red hair, so she has that fire attitude,” Julie DiGrazia laughed.
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