By John Newsom
The News & Record (Greensboro, NC)
GREENSBORO, NC — As flames shot through the front door and window of a home near South Holden Road on Monday, two Greensboro firefighters repelled the blaze just enough to rush inside and pull out a 4-year-old girl trapped in a back bedroom.
But the child, taken to two local hospitals and then to Shriners Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, suffered second-degree burns over 75 percent of her body. Shriners cares for children with the most serious burn injuries.
“It’s not very encouraging, unfortunately,” said David Douglas, assistant chief of the Greensboro Fire Department.
The news is more encouraging for another girl rescued by a neighbor who broke a bedroom window and pulled the 5-month-old from her bed before firefighters arrived.
The younger girl and her grandmother, Maria Elena Torres, were treated and released from Moses Cone Hospital, Douglas said.
The fire department declined to release the names of the children.
The fire at 3830 Simmons Court, near South Holden and Business 85, broke out shortly after 8 a.m. as next-door neighbor John Harris III was making a breakfast of sausage-and-egg bagels before going to work.
Harris said he heard screams, saw smoke and rushed outside. Torres had made it out safely, and she told Harris that the two girls were still inside asleep in separate back bedrooms.
Harris ran to the bedroom window closest to his house. He used a mop handle or pole from a shovel - he can’t remember which - to break out the bedroom window. Then Harris hoisted himself halfway through the window into a room filling up with thick black smoke. He grabbed the 5-month-old, sleeping on a bed below the window, and pulled her to safety.
As Harris carried the baby from the burning house, Engine No. 48 arrived. He told the firefighters about the second girl in the house.
The truck had four firefighters on board. Driver Allen Vickery worked the truck’s instrument panel, and firefighter Marshal Moon got the hydrant working.
Capt. Phil Blue and firefighter Sean Caviness grabbed a hose and went to work, repelling the flames just enough to get inside the house.
From there they fought their way into a hallway and into the back bedroom. Blue grabbed the 4-year-old and passed her out the window to a waiting neighbor.
“With a baby in there, you don’t have time to be scared,” said Blue, 47, who has worked for the Greensboro Fire Department for 23 years. “You don’t even feel the heat.”
Blue and Caviness continued to battle the fire from inside the house as other firefighters arrived. They put out the fire within 10 minutes, and no firefighters were injured.
The intense fire, caused by an electric space heater in the laundry room, melted the vinyl siding from the front of the one-story house and burned the front rooms and attic upstairs, Douglas said. The rear of the house was severely damaged by smoke.
Two hours later, wisps of gray smoke still wafted from the attic.
The Red Cross met with the family Monday afternoon to arrange food, clothing and shelter, spokeswoman Melanie McDonough said.
McDonough said she could not release any more information about the family.
Neighbor Sarah Hedgecock described the home, with its trampoline and basketball hoop in the front yard, as a gathering place where lots of children played. The family has lived in the rental home for at least the past year.
“They’re good people and a great little family,” Hedgecock said. “It’s a tragedy.”
Harris, who said he has applied for a job with the fire department, said he does not feel like a hero.
“I just feel like a neighbor,” said Harris, 33. “I just hope someone would do something like that for me if I wasn’t home.”
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