25 Jun 2007
Dallas ISD Workers To The Rescue
DALLAS—When Zachary Yates, an irrigation craftsman with the Dallas Independent School District, returned from lunch Wednesday, June 13, he pulled his truck in front of Arthur Kramer Elementary School but didn't get out to join the rest of his crew. It had been raining, and lightning was crackling in the air. Zachary said, "It was so bright, you'd have thought a giant camera flash was going off. Lightning shot down in several bolts across the street from the school; I felt pinned down in my truck."
Suddenly, another bolt of lightning hit the roof of a home down the block, prompting Dallas ISD electrician Tommy Climer, who was working on the Kramer Elementary marquee, to drop his tools. "I could see smoke, and then almost immediately, flames of fire from the roof of the house. Without thinking much about it, I began to move."
Meanwhile, the occupants of the house on Midbury Drive–a babysitter and three children–were totally unaware of the danger.
Yates jumped out of his truck, and he and Climer ran across the street and down the block to the house, "We didn't know if anyone was home, but we headed over there right away. The electricity in the air was so strong, the hair on my arms was sticking straight up," said Climer.
As they approached the house, another irrigation craftsman, Brad McKinney, called 911. "Even down the block, you could hear the flames crackling," said McKinney. "We were lucky, too. The fire department was responding to a false alarm in the neighborhood, so there was a truck nearby."
When Climer and Yates reached the house, they saw the children inside. "I banged on the door, shouting at them to come out," Yates remembers. "They looked surprised." Neither the babysitter nor the children, all under the age of ten, realized what had happened. Yates and Climer got them out of the house and across the street before the fire department arrived.
Once safe outside, one of the children expressed concern about her pet lizard. Almost immediately three trucks arrived and firefighters began fighting the blaze.
The homeowners, Mike and Suzanne Warner, say they're grateful their family is safe and that their house is still standing. "They did the right thing," Mike Warner said about the workers. " They got my family out, and called the fire department. I couldn't ask for more."
District maintenance staff were told by firefighters that if workers had arrived at the house five minutes later, the property would have been a total loss. The lightning burned a hole through the roof and went into the attic, but quick action prevented much serious damage to the house.
The children who escaped say they didn't know what to think when the work crew stormed the door. "We heard somebody banging at the door so I answered it and there's a man who said, 'Get out of the house. Your house is on fire'," said nine-year-old Grace Warner.
The Dallas ISD employees say they were just happy they could help. "As maintenance workers, we're always aware of our surroundings when we're working at schools," said Climer. "We'd want someone to do the same for our families if anything was to happen to them. I'm glad for Grace's sake that the lizard survived safe and sound."