Gwinnett teen -- and bird -- credited with saving family from fire

Print
E-mail

By Mike Morris and John Spink

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Gwinnett County family has a teenage girl – and a loud-mouthed bird – to thank for alerting them to a smoky early-morning fire.

Enlarge photo

Kevin George and his daughter, Grace George, stand outside after a fire in their home Lilburn on Monday. Gwinnett County firefighter J. Rowland douses smoldering debris.

John Spink, jspink@ajc.com Kevin George and his daughter, Grace George, stand outside after a fire in their home Lilburn on Monday. Gwinnett County firefighter J. Rowland douses smoldering debris.

More Gwinnett news »

Grace George, 13, was getting ready for school when she noticed smoke coming from the utility room of the home on Pendale Drive near Lilburn around 7 a.m. Monday.

Grace ran upstairs and told her parents and grandparents about the smoke, then went back downstairs and began getting the family’s eight pets – four dogs, two cats and two birds – out of the house.

All the while, one of the birds, a cockatoo, did her part to sound the alarm, yelling over and over, “incoming, incoming,” according to Grace’s grandmother, Linda George.

“She likes to watch TV and picks up words,” Linda George said of the bird. “I think she was trying to get our attention by screaming, ‘incoming.’”

Firefighters arrived and were able to contain the blaze to the utility room, although the entire house sustained smoke and water damage.

“We’re fortunate,” said Kevin George, Grace’s father. "We're blessed. We could have been sleeping."

Gwinnett fire Capt. Jeff Johnson agreed with Kevin George’s assessment.

“It could have been much different had no one been awake to smell the smoke and alert everyone else,” Johnson told the AJC. “Had they been sleeping, the noxious smoke may have rendered them unable to wake up and we might have had several fatalities here.”

Johnson said the house had no working smoke detectors. The homeowner had recently purchased new detectors, but had not yet installed them, he said.

“Hindsight being 20/20, [the homeowner] said she wished that she already had installed them,” Johnson said. “You can never underestimate the importance of having working smoke detectors in your house.”