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My Mom Was A Makeshift Firefighter

The act of heroism my mom did.

By Samantha ParrishPublished 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago 7 min read
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As I’m sitting here reminiscing about these days in June. I think about some of the memories that I have in June, and one of those memories is one that I haven’t thought about extensively for a long time. When a very serious event happened in the summer of 2013.

Our neighbor's condo was on fire.

Before the fire happened, it was 8 p.m., and my mother was still in her work attire from Target, she still had her red T-shirt on, and her tan khaki pants. She was on her computer, just winding down from a long day shift. We were just having a relaxing night at home. But the relaxation was going to have a shift change. My mother went to look out the back door and then she said “Sally’s place is on fire!”

My mother didn’t hesitate to open the tough sliding door from the anxiety adrenaline. As she rushed out the door, she even knocked down the mesh screen door and just kept bolting across the concrete street with no shoes on. By the time we got to Sally’s place, Sally was already at the door with her oxygen tank in one hand and having both hands on her walker. At that time I did not know that in the event of a fire you are supposed to go ahead and discard any machinery because it could easily explode from the heat. But we didn’t know to do that when our priority was trying to get Sally out of the burning condo. I helped Sally off of the ledge of the door, took her air tank, and sat her on the stairs. My mother did not hesitate to go ahead and grab the hose nearby that was thankfully connected to the faucet. If you've ever seen the climactic scene from Backdraft when William Baldwin's character makes a path in a dangerous area of the fire to clear the area for the other firefighters to get through. Think of that climactic scene, but in a condo. My mother headed back inside to find the origin of the fire. The origin of the fire was pinpointed to the dryer, so putting the pieces together, the dryer caught on fire due to the lint that was accumulated into the dryer vent and came back to backfire and then make a literal fire.

As soon as I sat Sally down, it was my job to call 911. I cannot tell you who gave me a house phone, but I remember calling 911. That was the first time I had been instructed to call 911. It was an anxiety experience, not because of having to call but having to explain everything that was still sinking in from the current chaos going on. I was still comprehending what was going on I was stalled when the 911 operator asked me for the address, I completely forgot the address of a person I've known all my life, Sally was understanding of my duress and she told me the address. I told them that my mother was inside the condo, I looked over to see my mother at a close distance to the fire, and I watched as she sprayed the hose water onto the dryer to contain it as best as she could.

The 911 operator instructed me to get my mother out of the house for her safety, my mother was determined to get the fire settled so it couldn't spread to parts of the house, or god forbid spread upstairs.

Between the chaos and trying to keep calm (Surprisingly was pretty easy to do at that moment for me I was surprised myself that I kept calm).

There was another problem, as mentioned these are condos, Sally is on the downstairs unit, which means someone was upstairs. If this fire was gonna get out of hand beyond my mom's control or for the firefighters, whoever was upstairs had to be evacuated. Again, I did as I was told, I bolted upstairs to go get the neighbor out while my mother had the fire contained, and she could watch Sally while I had to go upstairs and go get the neighbor(s).

I knocked on the door very vigorously, and seconds later, a young man came to the door with concerning his eyes. I told him what was going on and he immediately thought of the pets that he has with his mom. So I grabbed the cat, and he took the dog and we went trudging down the stairs. As soon as we got downstairs, we went to an area out of the way of the firefighters.

I learned that the young man's name was Russell, we watched as the chaos continued, firetrucks scoured the area of a quiet neighborhood. People came out of their houses to see the commotion going on. Some didn't leave their house and stood on their back porches to watch with confusion and curiosity. During this whole time of holding onto a pet and watching the firefighters, I lost track of my mom I didn’t know where she went. I knew she wasn't inside the condo and let the firefighters do their job with the equipment to put out the fire. I wasn't sure if she went back home to go call Sally's family about what happened, or if she went back to go call our family. On a scarier scenario note, I wasn't sure if she had to be checked by the paramedics for smoke inhalation. My mother was within feet of this fire so my concern grew about if she got burned or not.

To give some sense of placement, the condo has a walkway leading up to the house with two small patches of land on either side. I was on the left side, waiting and watching the turmoil with Russell. My mom was on the right side standing on the sidewalk in front of the other neighboring unit. I presume that day that she was with Sally to make sure she was doing Ok until her family showed up. Even when Sally was with the paramedics, she wouldn't leave her side. I looked at my mom through the yellow and black jacket haze of firefighters going back and forth. She gave me a thumbs up indicating that everything was OK, that she was OK, and Sally was OK.

It was 11 p.m. when everything started to calm down, the fire had been put out, and Sally was taken to go be with her family until her condo could be fixed. I checked on my mom to make sure she was ok, and then I went upstairs with Russell to go put the pets away. He thanked me for holding onto the cat for as long as I did.

I went upstairs with Russell to go and check for any damage, to see if any smoke had gotten through Russell's home. A firefighter checked the area with a detector, some smoke got in through the ceiling, but it wasn't causing an alarm, the smoke just had to be cleaned off of the clothes it seeped onto. Russell's mother arrived home shortly after the chaos happened, and we told her about the fire. She was relieved to know that everyone was safe and that their condo unit was safe to live in.

I went back home immediately to go check on my mom, to access her psyche, and we both were still shaken by what happened all within 3 and a half hours. I told my mom that I wanted to call my grandmother and tell her about what we had just gone through. She let me do that despite the time being so late at night, I called my grandmother and told her about what happened. Then my mom took over the phone to tell her the rest of the details after I was dramatic sizing everything because I wanted to tell my grandmother about how much my mom was a hero.

A couple of weeks later after the fire, My mom and I received a gift from Russell’s mother, Sandy. It’s a gift that I will never forget for the semblance and symbolism of what happened. We were given these two small houses, one was painted orange and one was painted yellow. My mom explained to me what the significance was. Sandy gave us these tiny houses and gratitude for saving her house.

That was the bravest thing that I’ve ever witnessed my mother does, it takes a lot of guts to have no hesitation to go and save someone no matter what you look like or what energy you have.

Remember the scene in Captain America: The First Avenger when a bomb was dropped for a test run for the soldier's reaction to action? All the buff boys ran away, but tiny, frail, Steve Rogers went barreling over to cradle this grenade so that way no one would get hurt in the event it went off. That was basically what my mom did, she went right towards the danger because she knew she had to go save her friend.

She didn’t care if she was going to get burned.

She didn’t care that she didn’t have any shoes on.

She didn’t care that this was dangerous.

She cared about making sure her friend was safe.

I'm very proud to be her daughter and to see that act of heroism she did.

Humanity
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About the Creator

Samantha Parrish

What's something interesting you always wanted to know?

Instagram: parrishpassages

tiktok: themysticalspacewitch

My book Inglorious Ink is now available on Amazon!

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