Quick action saves the day
Jill Stuart can honestly say she has a neighbor who will walk through fire for her.
Last August, the South Hill resident had a problem with her dog, Bud, getting into the garbage can. One day she put the can on top of her gas stove to keep it out of reach of the dog.
After she left, the dog tried to get to the can and accidentally ignited the burners to the stove. The house soon caught fire.
Her neighbor, John Hoffman, was in his front yard washing his car when he noticed a very faint beeping.
At first, he thought the noise was from nearby road construction, but when he turned and saw smoke billowing from Stuart’s house, he jumped into action.
“He’s my hero,” Stuart said. “He really saved the day.”
Hoffman said that he had his wife, Courtney, call 911 while he ran over to Stuart’s house. He knew she was out of the house that afternoon, and he worried about her dogs.
The door was locked, but Hoffman has a key. He grabbed a fire extinguisher, and the key from his house and ran back to Stuart’s.
The key made it a little easier.
“I probably would have kicked the front door in,” Hoffman said.
His father-in-law, Bill McKay, pulled up to the Hoffman’s house around this time. Hoffman worked on putting out the fire, while McKay looked for Stuart’s two dogs, Bud and Betsy.
When he entered the kitchen, the flames from the stove had reached the ceiling, and the two dogs weren’t responding to McKay.
Hoffman emptied the extinguisher on the flames and ran out the back door to get the hose.
While the two were in the house, they kept their shirts over their mouths and noses to keep the smoke out. Every minute or so, they ran outside for some air.
Hoffman said that while he was dealing with the fire, McKay was crawling on all fours, trying to stay underneath the cloud of smoke while he searched for the dogs.
McKay saw Bud at the top of the stairs, and the dog turned around toward Betsy, who was hiding. Hoffman said that Betsy was a rescue dog and tends to hide when she gets scared.
When it looked like the fire was out, Hoffman heard the clicking sound of the gas stove.
Once again, the quick-thinking neighbor ran outside and shut off the gas line.
Although he said it felt like a lot longer, he estimated that it only took the Fire Department five to seven minutes to arrive.
By that time, the fire was out, and the dogs were safe. Hoffman said the firefighters didn’t even hook up the tanker.
They checked the gas line and when they noticed it had been shut off already, they thanked Hoffman.
“That was good thinking,” Hoffman said the firefighters told him.
Hoffman said that it occurred to him while he was hosing down the house that maybe this wasn’t a good idea. There was the obvious danger of the fire, and he was standing in pools of water in his bare feet. He worried about getting electrocuted.
“I would hope that someone would do the same for me,” he said.
Being a good neighbor is something Hoffman’s and Stuart’s neighborhood practices on a regular basis. The neighbors had recently held a block party and updated their phone lists in case of emergency.
Hoffman thinks being a good neighbor means being vigilant and talking to your neighbors.
But to Stuart, Hoffman’s neighborliness went above and beyond the usual call of duty that day.
“He’s such a modest man,” she said.
She’s been trying to do something to thank him ever since.
“I got them thank-you cards and gift certificates,” she said. She also e-mailed the Ellen DeGeneres Show and Oprah Winfrey to tell them about her special neighbor.
She bought a vase and had “World’s Greatest Neighbor” engraved into it. She’s planning on having the family to dinner to give it to them.
The fire left her home with a destroyed kitchen, smoke and water damage in the dining room and smoke damage throughout the house.
She said that she, her 14-year-old son, Colin, and the dogs stayed with her sister for three or four weeks. Workers recently finished restoring her house.
“I just want him to know how much I appreciate what he did,” she said. “He truly is like a hero.”