By Bill Trotter
Bangor Daily News (Maine)

EASTBROOK, Maine — A look of helplessness and frustration was visible on Paul Edgerly's face Saturday evening as he talked about his sudden struggle to save his half brother's life.

Ric McNeil, the local fire chief, was critically injured Saturday morning when a fire engulfed his trailer across from Edgerly's home on Abbott Lane. McNeil's son, 13-year-old Thomas "Tommy" McNeil, died in the flames.

"He was a good kid," Edgerly, visibly upset by the family tragedy, said of his nephew. "They don't know if [Ric] is going to make it."

Edgerly said it was about 5 a.m. Saturday when he awoke to the sight and smell of Ric's trailer burning across the road. A neighbor who was a first responder and firefighter had already been alerted to the blaze and had left in his vehicle for the local fire station, a little over a mile away, to get a firetruck.

Edgerly said he ran across the street, opened the door to the burning trailer and went inside to look for his brother and nephew. He found his brother lying on the floor, grabbed him and, struggling on his hands and knees to keep himself from passing out, fought to pull McNeil to safety.

He said the fire was too intense to get to Tommy's room. Tommy's older brother, 14-year-old Richard, was spending the night next door at his grandmother's house when the fire broke out.

"I was scared as hell," Edgerly said. "You see programs on TV and you think, 'I would have done this' or 'I would have done that.' When it happens, you can't think straight."

Edgerly, 50, spoke as he stood Saturday evening in the doorway of his home. A Boston Red Sox hat covered the stubble on his head where the flames had singed his hair as he was trying to pull his brother from the burning trailer.

McNeil, 35, was taken Saturday to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where he is being treated for burns and smoke inhalation, according to relatives and officials.

McNeil's sister Carol McAlpine said Sunday that McNeil's injuries turned out to be worse than his family thought immediately after his rescue. He had been listed in critical condition later Saturday but his condition was upgraded Sunday morning, she said.

"He's doing better now," McAlpine said. "They're keeping him sedated."

Across the street from Edgerly's house, a blackened square of upright framing was all that remained of Ric McNeil's home. Investigators from the State Fire Marshal's Office, surrounded on all sides by yellow caution tape, dug through the rubble looking for clues to how it all started.

Attempts Sunday to contact officials with Maine Department of Public Safety about the status of the investigation were unsuccessful.

McAlpine said Sunday that the family was having a tough time dealing with the loss of Tommy, a boy who liked Spider-Man and Harry Potter.

"It's a difficult thing," she said.

Adam Church, a relative of McNeil's and a local firefighter, said Sunday that he had raised nearly $400 to help McNeil. Friends and neighbors are trying to secure another trailer to replace the one McNeil lost in the fire, he said, and a benefit breakfast at the local Grange hall has been planned for 7 a.m. Saturday, May 3.

Anyone who wants to make cash or other donations may contact Church at 631-3211 or at P.O. Box 260, Franklin 04634, he said.

"Thirteen is too young," Church said of Tommy. "We need a lot of love and support right now."

Edgerly said Saturday's fire was not the first time McNeil had come close to death. When McNeil was 16, a car he was in was struck by a drunken driver.

"I hope it wasn't for nothing," Edgerly said of pulling his brother from the trailer. "He's cheated death a few times, and I hope he does this time."

Copyright 2008 Bangor Daily News