John Hamilton was the kind of neighbor everybody wants. Kind and always willing to help out, he would even cut the grass for a family whose mower was broken, a neighbor said.
That’s why Jeannie Gilleland said she wished she could have done more to save Hamilton when flames engulfed his single-story, wood-frame home shortly before midnight Sunday. She did all she could, but it wasn’t enough to save the 50-year-old, who perished in the blaze.
“I threw a cinder block at the patio door trying to get it open,” Gilleland told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I was shocked when (the block) crumbled. It was like I might as well have thrown water. I just stood there in complete confusion.”
Gilleland tried again to break through the glass with a piece of the concrete, but the tempered glass didn’t budge. Fearing for their safety, Gilleland said she and her family got Hamilton’s wife away from the flames as fire crews arrived. By then, Gilleland said it was too late.
“To stand there and watch and know that somebody is dying and you can’t anything, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Gilleland said Monday afternoon.
The Edith Lane home was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived, Gwinnett County fire Capt. Tommy Rutledge said. Firefighters attempted to enter the home to conduct a search, but were initially driven back by intense fire conditions and the partial collapse of the roof, he said.
Firefighters had the blaze under control in about 30 minutes despite several challenges. , including a downed live electrical service line and a natural gas-fed fire from the gas meter to the home, Rutledge said.
“A downed power line kept them from gaining close access on one side of the home, then you have the gas burning from the meter that’s damaged on the other side,” Rutledge said.
When firefighters were able to enter the home, they located Hamilton’s body. The county medical examiner’s office said Hamilton died from smoke and soot inhalation.
No one else was injured in the blaze, which destroyed a home Hamilton had been renovating, Gilleland said. Hamilton’s wife, Donna, was in another house nearby with other relatives when the fire ignited.
Gilleland said after living next door to the Hamiltons for 15 years, her neighbors were more like family members. On Saturday, the Gillelands and Hamiltons were at a Christmas parade together. John and Donna Hamilton, who both retired from the military, didn’t have children of their own. But Gilleland said the couple was like parents and grandparents to other relatives and friends.
“People should understand that it’s all gone in the blink of an eye,” Gilleland said. “It puts everything in perspective. He’s going to be dearly, dearly missed as a neighbor, as a friend, and I’m sure as a husband.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, but investigators do not suspect foul play. Rutledge said an investigator with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was called in to assist in determining the cause of the blaze.
- Staff writer Mike Morris and staff photographer John Spink contributed to this report
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