A 9-year-old Hall County girl is being heralded as a hero after rescuing three of her younger siblings from their family’s burning mobile home Friday night.
Hall County Sheriff and Fire Services departments say the sleeping children were home alone in the Highland Mobile Home Park off Athens Highway when the 9-year-old was awakened by a smoke detector alarm. Thick smoke was enveloping the house. Acting quickly, she ran to another room, gathered her 1-year-old brother and 3-year-old sister, who were sleeping, and raced them to a neighbor’s house nearby.
Telling the neighbors to call 911, the 9-year-old turned back. With flames beginning to engulf her family’s home, the 9-year-old ran back inside it, grabbed her 5-year-old brother and made another run for it as the blaze grew.
Authorities said Monday it was an electrical fire, started by lights on a Christmas tree still in the home. They also said the children were left at home alone by their mother’s 38-year-old boyfriend Gregorio Garcia-Gomez. Garcia-Gomez arrived as the fire department was trying to put out the fire. He told authorities that he had gone to pick up the children’s mother from work, but it is unclear whether the children’s mother was with him when he returned to the burning home.
Garcia-Gomez was arrested on four counts of second-degree cruelty to a child and taken to the Hall County Jail where where he is still being held on $9,600 bond.
The children were taken to the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville where they were treated for smoke inhalation and released.
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