Even neighbors and passersby tried to save the wheelchair-bound victim
By George Chidi
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Copyright 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
DULUTH, Ga. — The neighbors gathered around a house of ash Thursday, mourning, while workers pulled the body of an elderly wheelchair-bound man from the embers. Area residents, passersby and firefighters had fought to rescue James Barlo from a fast-moving fire near Duluth.
“The wife and several neighbors tried to save him,” Gwinnett Fire Department spokesman Thomas Rutledge said. Residents said people threw a chair through a window trying to get in to save Barlo before the fire departments quick arrival at about 5:38 p.m. But the fire overcame everyone who tried.
Karen Barlo suffered burns to her face when she tried to save him from the fire, whose cause is still unkown.
Thursday afternoon, a phone company marketing representative smelled smoke as he walked up to a door nearby.
“As soon as I got there, the wife came out with smoke on her face,” Bens Bellevue said. “She was shouting, ‘He’s by the door!’”
Bellevue tried to get in to find him. He heard Barlo shouting for help. But the smoke was too thick to see him.
“I tried to breathe through my shirt,” Bellevue said.
He fell to his knees to crawl on the floor toward Barlo. The floor was on fire. It drove him out, he said.
“After that, I didn’t hear any shouting,” Bellevue said. “I knew he was dead.”
Medics treated Bellevue’s injuries — second-degree burns on his hands where he had crawled toward Barlo through the smoke.
Treva Roller, who had lived next door to Barlo until recently, said Barlo suffered from a degenerative inner-ear disorder that left him in a wheelchair but did not stop him from gardeninig or cutting his neighbor’s grass on his riding mower.
“He didn’t like to be inside.”