By Jackie Farwell
Bangor Daily News (Maine)
Copyright 2006 Bangor Daily News
SANGERVILLE, Maine — The fire was burning just outside Michelle Knowlton’s bedroom door early Saturday morning when she felt she had to make a choice: Die in the flames with her two young sons or throw them and herself out the second-story window of her Mill Street home.
It was about 1:30 a.m. and Chayce Foster, 2, and Chancelor Knowlton, 5, were asleep in their mother’s bed. She opened the door after being awakened by a noise she thought was an intruder, but instead found herself threatened by flames and smoke.
Knowlton’s first thought was the window.
“I’ve never been so scared, and I keep thinking about it,” Knowlton, 30, said by phone from her bed at Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft on Sunday. “That was our only way out.”
She broke through two glass windows and a screen, then grabbed Chayce, who has kidney disease, and dropped him about 20 feet to the ground, terrified that his one remaining kidney would rupture, Knowlton said. Next was Chancelor, crying and upset. He landed on his face, nearly severing his nose and thumb on broken glass, she said.
“I didn’t want to drop my children, but I had to,” Knowlton said, her voice weak. “I feel like it’s my fault because I should have wrapped [Chancelor] in a blanket.
“If I had not gotten them out, we would have died in the fire,” she said.
Michelle and Roy Lord, friends who live across the street, ran over after Roy happened to see the fire’s glow and then heard the sound of breaking glass.
“I could hear her crying and calling my name and asking me to help her,” Michelle Lord said of Knowlton.
But the Lords couldn’t get inside the burning house, a “helpless, horrid feeling,” Michelle Lord said.
Then Knowlton jumped, landing on her arm and rolling down the hill outside. The Lords spotted Chayce in the grass, then Knowlton and Chancelor, whose face was covered with blood. Worried about an explosion, the couple carried Knowlton and the boys back to their home.
“I knew once they were at our house they’d be OK,” Michelle Lord said.
The boys were in shock, with Chayce mostly unhurt, but Chancelor bleeding from a nearly severed nose. The Lords gave him a facecloth to hold his nose in place, Michelle Lord said.
“We didn’t know how hurt [Knowlton] was,” she said.
The Fire Department and ambulances soon arrived, responding to the couple’s 911 call, Michelle Lord said.
Knowlton fractured her back and arm in the fall and is scheduled for surgery today, she said. She’s on pain medication and will need extensive physical therapy to recover, Knowlton said.
“I can’t really get out of bed,” she said.
Chancelor, who also suffered cuts to his head, was released from the hospital Saturday after his nose was stitched up. He will require plastic surgery to further repair his nose, Knowlton said. He might not have made it at all, however, had he slept in his room as he usually does, she said.
“Normally he’s not in my bed,” but Chancelor wanted to read stories that night, Knowlton said.
Chayce, who always sleeps in her bed, suffered only a cut on his foot, she said.
Knowlton is a stay-at-home mom so she can care for Chayce, who has kidney disease, and Chancelor, who has mental health issues. The boys are staying with her mother until she can leave the hospital, Knowlton said.
Knowlton has two other children, B.J. Curtis, 11, and Taleya Curtis, 9, who live with her parents, Ken and Carol Curtis of Sangerville.
The fire destroyed the house, so her sister is trying to find her an apartment, Knowlton said. She has renter’s insurance, and the house, owned by her parents, was insured as well, she said.
The cause of the fire is being investigated by the State Fire Marshal’s Office, though officials believe it started in the kitchen or dining room area, Sangerville Fire Chief Charles Beane said Sunday.
“It had a good head start on us,” he said.
Crews from Guilford, Dover-Foxcroft and Dexter also responded, and the Red Cross was called in to assist the family, he said.
Knowlton thinks the fire could have started in the wood stove into which she had been tossing some dry paper. She also had thrown some burned-out matches into the stove Friday after trying to light candles, which may have ignited the papers, she said.
Smoke detectors are installed in the house, but she might not have heard them with a fan running in the bedroom and the door closed to keep her cats out, Knowlton said. One of the two cats survived, but she’s not sure about the other one yet, she said.
Neighbors have donated clothes for the children, and the community will continue to come together to help the family, Michelle Lord said.
“It really made me proud to live in a small town,” she said.
Some have suggested that Knowlton could have taken measures to lessen the risk of dropping the children from the window, such as throwing out a mattress, Michelle Lord said. But Knowlton’s room was rapidly engulfed in flames, and she didn’t have time to make any other choice, she said.
“She is a hero. She saved her kids,” Michelle Lord said of Knowlton. “She could not have done anything any better.”
Donations for the family may be sent to Knowlton’s parents, Ken and Carol Curtis, 69 Pleasant Ave. or P.O. Box 10, Sangerville 04479. Their telephone number is 876-2927.