The scene was horrendous when Carroll County Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Bud Bennifield arrived at the burning house.
By the time the deputy chief got there, an 18-year-old woman had been saved from the roof and she and two other hysterical women were in in the yard. Fire was already “venting” from windows of the second-floor master bedroom.
But a child was missing, believe to be in the bedroom where the flames had already taken over.
The boy, four-year-old Lucas Shaw was found dead Tuesday afternoon in an area between the master bedroom and an adjoining bathroom.
“He was in the same area that the fire appears to to have originated,” Bennifield told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wednesday. “He was on the floor.”
The 18-year-old aunt rescued from the roof and the child’s mother were taken to a local hospital, treated and released. The grandmother was not harmed, the deputy chief said. Three firefighters suffered burns because the intense heat made it through their protective suits to their skin.
“Our guys didn’t realize they were burned,” Bennifield said. “They were caught up in the adrenaline and the drive to do what has to be done. Our guys didn’t realize they had been burned for maybe an hour or hour and half after the fire was out.”
The call to 911 came at 2:55 p.m. and units were at the isolated house in the 1700 block of Center Point Road within six minutes.
Bennifield said the mothers and grandmother were on the first floor when the fire started and the mother had tried to get to her son upstairs before she fled the house. The aunt crawled out a second floor window onto the roof and a firefighter brought her down a ladder to safety.
“The fire was progressing rapidly,” Bennifield said. “The grandmother, the aunt and the mother were outside and they were hysterical. Our firefighters made the attempt to go in and they did get in the house…. They searched the house in attempts to locate the child.”
A hose was fed inside and it was then that they found the boy.
“They don’t give up. That’s why they were burned. They stayed for that little boy,” Bennifield said. “They didn’t come out and take any breaks.”
The firefighters who were burned were in the house 15 to 20 minutes, Bennifield estimates. The injuries were to the forehead, an ear, knees and hands.
The cause of the fire has not been determined but Bennifield noted it started in the same area where the child was found.
“One of the things we as adults need to pay close attention to is having working smoke detectors,” Bennifield said. “So far, our investigation revealed there were not any smoke detectors. You can’t emphasize that enough.”
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