Firefighting Student Helps Alert Family To Raging Blaze In Garage
A young London woman training to become a fire fighter helped alert a family to a fire raging in their garage.
The blaze started around 10 p.m. Sunday at a home on Sunningdale Rd., west of Highbury Ave.
It was around that time that 22-year-old Jessica Gordon and her brother Eric were coming home from a night spent playing games at Palasad. As the two approached their home, which is also located on Sunningdale Rd., they spotted what seemed to be a bonfire.
But as the pair got closer, they realized the flames were from a much larger blaze.
When they arrived on Sunningdale Rd., Gordon says they called 911 and she told her brother to check around the back of the home to see if anyone was there. Meanwhile, she started banging on the door to try and get the family’s attention.
“You could hear the fire alarms going off…there was a dog barking. It felt like forever before anyone heard, or came to the door,” Gordon says.
Just as Gordon was about to go into the house herself, the owner appeared at the door.
“As soon as the guy came to the door he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s the garage.’ I was like, ‘Your house is on fire! Get out!’ and then finally there was some hustle, the realization (that the house was on fire),” she says.
Gordon says by the time fire crews, the police and EMS arrived on scene the flames had moved from the garage to the back of the home.
As for what she did, the Pre-Service Firefighting student at St. Clair College says she just sprang into action.
“I didn’t really think about it or hesitate. I just wanted to get the family out as safely as possible,” she says.
“It makes me excited for Tuesday when I have to go back to class, I have a story to tell everyone else,” Gordon says with a laugh.
The fire caused an estimated $250,000 in damage to the home Sunningdale Rd. and fire officials are still working to determine the exact cause.
With files from Natalie Lovie
via (CFPL AM) AM 980.
