 “Go into a room
that you are familiar with. Hold your breath for a really long time. Turn the lights out.
Foggy your eyes, like put vaseline on your glasses, and that isn’t even close.”
Kendall Marlin knows
what it is really like to be in a smoke-filled burning house but he can’t find all
the words to describe it.
A year ago, he and
his wife and daughter were pulled out of their burning house on South Second Street and
none of them were breathing.
Now, 3-year-old Paula runs around
the remodeled house, slightly scarred by the fire that almost took her life.
Kendall stands proudly in his
house elegantly redecorated in blue, the favorite color of his wife, Sylvia.
Kendall remembers very little
about Nov. 24, 1998. After coming home from work, he and Paula, then 2 years old, went up
to watch TV in the attic. His wife Sylvia, who has multiple sclerosis, was getting ready
to go to her sister’s house.
“Sylvia was going to turn the
oil (heat) on, and I said ‘No, I’ll make a fire,’ ” Kendall said.
The evening progressed and as he
got ready to take a shower he remembered he had to get the wood stove started.
“When I was done that, I went
in and sat down on the edge of the bed, and I fell asleep,” Kendall said.
“I woke up because I heard
Sylvia saying ‘Kendall, did you know there was a fire?’ I thought she had gone
to her sister’s,”Kendall said.
The next minutes for the family
were crucial. Kendall remembered Paula was in the attic.
He climbed up the wooden pull-out
steps while he told Paula “to follow his voice and come to him” Kendall clasped
to Paula but fell down the stairs trying to get her from the attic.
Firefighters found Kendall and
Paula at the bottom of the stairs; Sylvia was in the bedroom.
Kendall’s brother, Corey,
lives behind him, and noticed the smoke. He called 911 around 8:40 p.m., went to the house
and began banging on the bedroom window to wake the family.
Assistant Chief Rick Fesperman
said firefighters found the family on their “primary search.”
From investigating the scene,
Fesperman said the cause of the fire was the wood stove. Somehow, it ignited a nearby book
case and it spread from there.
Once the family was located and
pulled from the house, “the fire was abandoned to revive the patients,”
Fesperman said.
“If everyone is saved then
we’ve accomplished doing what we are here to do,” Fesperman said.
And for their life-saving efforts,
a recent copy of Firehouse magazine issued four company citations to the Salisbury Fire
Department.
Engine 522, Tanker 528, Ladder 516
and Squad 515 were mentioned for recognition.
“All the people who man those
pieces of equipment were recognized, it was an effort of the whole shift,” Fesperman
said.
This fire is a prime example of
the need for a working smoke detector, Fesperman said.
Kendall agrees. He said he had
just checked the smoke detector and the battery was low.
“Don’t ever put it off,
I can’t stress that enough,” Kendall said.
He thanks God no one died in the
fire, but a smoke detector may have prevented the extensive damage they did suffer.
The back of the house was
destroyed and the rest was damaged from smoke and water.
Kendall was in the hospital with
burns covering 30 percent of his body. He had skin grafts in December and came home
sometime before New Year’s Day.
Paula was burned on her calves and
her foot. She also had skin grafts and came home New Year’s Day.
Sylvia suffered internal injuries
from smoke inhalation. Kendall said his wife suffered “double trauma” with her
multiple sclerosis and is now completely disabled.
There are no scars left on the
house the family has lived in for six years. Nationwide Insurance provided money for the
family to rebuild and found a construction company to do the work, Kendall said.
“There are so many people I
want to thank. Everyone says ‘Call me and I’ll do this or I’ll do
that,’ but some people called me and asked me what could they do.
“When you are in a situation
like that, you don’t always want to ask people to help you,” he said.
Mary Rice, a retired nurse from
Rowan Regional, came over and helped take care of Sylvia while Kendall continued working
at Permaflex. Kendall said co-workers Doc White and Allen Tolbert helped with things like
getting his truck inspected and keeping up the house.
Sylvia’s sister, Paulette
Mangham, calls every day to see what kind of help Kendall may need. “She has multiple
sclerosis also,”Kendall said,
Kendall’s parents, Cathy and
Clarence Marlin, stood by his side and kept the family in their prayers. “There are
just so many people, I could never name them all, and I didn’t even know them all,
like the firefighters and the doctors, there are just so many people we need to thank. But
above all, our faith got us through it.
“We are happy to be alive. No
matter how bad you have it, somebody has it worse,” Kendall said. “So when
people ask me, I am doing fine.”
Amidst the background noise, a
smoke detector beeps, reminding them it will be there to warn — if there’s a
next time. |
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