For 46 years, the Price home on London Road was always open to children who had nowhere else to go.
Its caretakers, Rod and Linda Price, were known for their generosity and always found room for a child, whether it be for a few nights or a few years. Over time, 13 children were adopted by the couple, adding to their family of eight biological children. Many of them were disabled. All were considered their own, said daughter Rosie Robinson.
On the night of April 30, flames engulfed the 2,000-square-foot ranch home, bringing a bevy of emergency responders to the neighborhood surrounding Chamblee’s Keswick Park. Five of the Prices’ adult children had escaped by the time Chamblee police arrived, shortly after 10 p.m. Rod Price and his 28-year-old son Joel, who was bedbound, were trapped inside.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
The mother, the school nurse at nearby Oakcliff Elementary, was returning from a trip and was not home when the fire started.
Firefighters pulled out the father, who had carried one of his children to safety but was knocked down by some sort of explosion while returning for his son. When they got to Joel, he was already in cardiac arrest, said DeKalb fire Capt. Jaeson Daniels. Paramedics continued to work on him all the way to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead, his sister said.
“Joel was a fighter,” Robinson said of her brother, who nearly drowned at 18 months old and was in and out of hospitals his entire life. “He fought every day for his life. He was the one who could uplift my mom’s spirits whenever she was stressed. It’s going to be the biggest adjustment for her.”
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
Robinson and her siblings are finding strength by caring for those who survived, helping them to settle into temporary housing, while her father and two of her sisters remain hospitalized. Doctors delayed their assessment of Rod Price’s burns, which go up his arms, cover his head and travel down his back, because of how much smoke had filled his lungs. He underwent surgery Friday.
Renee Price, 38, the oldest sibling in the home, was released from the hospital Thursday after being treated for second-degree burns on her back. Robinson described Renee as “our hero.”
Renee was the first to notice “a weird smell” and followed it to a bedroom, where she spotted the fire. She said she grabbed a fire extinguisher, but despite her efforts, the flames only grew, angry and hot. While Robinson surmises it was an electrical fire, its official cause is still under investigation.
Renee and her father then began to evacuate her siblings. She went in and out of the burning home, stopping only to change her shirt when she realized it was on fire.
“It was like fight or flight syndrome,” Renee Price said. “I got everybody out. I was going to go back in (for Joel), but the police told me I couldn’t.”
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
Renee, who is diagnosed with agenesis of the corpus callosum, a brain disorder, started with her sisters who use wheelchairs. First was the sibling whose room was closest to the fire, and Renee and her father carried her out to safety. Aided by one sister, who has Down syndrome, they slid out another sister on a support pad. The youngest sibling, who is 19 and has autism, followed them out.
“The house, just, it was crazy. It spread so fast,” Renee said.
Dr. Delores Paschall, the principal of Oakcliff, said in a statement that the shocking news of the Price family’s tragedy “has profoundly impacted our entire faculty and staff.”
“Without question, the devastating passing of a loved one is unimaginable for any family,” Paschall said. “While we cannot replace the loss of their home, our school faculty and staff have provided monetary donations and offered temporary living arrangements. Beyond this assistance, we will continue to do everything we can to help the Price family get through this heartbreaking and most challenging time.”
Robinson said her mother is already thinking about how to resume care for her siblings, looking for rental homes that can fit them all and accommodate their specialized medical equipment.
Linda Price spent at least two years fighting insurance companies for customized wheelchairs for her children and for her husband following a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. The three chairs, all of the feeding tube equipment, specialized lifts and breathing machines were burned up. Worse still, the damage was so extensive that there is no hope of ever returning to London Road.
Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC
“That address is ingrained in my brain,” Robinson said of her childhood home. “The neighborhood looks a lot different now, because they are scraping off houses and building up bigger. That’s the only home we’ve known.”
It’s bittersweet for Robinson, who is lamenting the loss but also looking toward a better future for her aging parents, now in their 70s. In the days following the fire, a GoFundMe campaign raised more than $100,000 for the family, and friends have rallied in support.
The tragedy has also brought together all of Robinson’s siblings, most of whom have moved away and are busy with their own families and lives.
“We’re going to see beauty out of these ashes,” she said.
Robinson said the entire Price clan inherited their parents’ strong work ethic and servant hearts, inspired by their Christian faith. When she and her “big siblings” lived at home, they helped in the care of the others with disabilities. Robinson is the middle child, she said, and some of her 20 siblings have since died.
Without much money to go around, Robinson said there were years when people helped with Christmas presents and put food on their table, but her parents always placed the children’s care first. It’s now time for their children, bolstered by the support of the community, to care for them.
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
Credit: Contributed / Family photo
“It’s awful that my brother died and my dad is horribly burned,” Robinson said. “If it brings my family closer, and my family can be set up on the right foot, and we can give them a better place to live, then maybe God can bring some good.
“But right now,” she said, “we’re still in a whirlwind.”
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