Young hockey player saves host from fire
What Kellow didn't know was a couch downstairs had caught fire, somehow. A portion of the house would eventually be engulfed in flames.
Over the past year, Moioffer, an 18-year-old
It was a good thing Moioffer was home at the time, the town's deputy fire chief said.
"I can say with a good degree of confidence he saved her life," said
He would not speculate as to the cause of the blaze in the single-family home at
If Kellow had been home alone in the shower, things might have been different, Amerault said.
"The outcome could have been tragic," Amerault said. "It was very lucky he was home."
'The house is on fire!'
When the fire broke out, Moioffer had been playing video games upstairs, he said.
"They (firefighters) think that it was a candle downstairs and I was upstairs playing video games and I smelled the smoke before I heard any alarms or anything like that," Moioffer said. "And I went to check it out, and sure enough, half the couch was on fire."
He ran upstairs, grabbed a towel from his room to put out the fire, knocked on the bathroom door and yelled for Kellow to get out . He soaked a towel in the sink and ran back downstairs to try and smother the fire.
"He was yelling and saying something and he was running up and down the stairs," Kellow said. "'You've got to get out of the house, you've got to get out of the house!'" Kellow said Moioffer was yelling. "'The house is on fire!"
Keller said when she got out of the shower, she wrapped herself in a towel and opened the bathroom door, where she was greeted with thick, black smoke. She ran into a railing and became disoriented. An occupational therapist, she knows the protocol of how to deal with a fire in a facility like a nursing home, but all that training went out the window. She panicked.
"I had no idea where I was in my own house and I lived here for 13 years," Kellow said.
"Then I ran back upstairs to check on Robin and make sure everything was all right," Moioffer said.
By this time, the smoke was so thick he knew Kellow could not find her way out. She was yelling she could not see and Moioffer said the smoke was so think, he could not tell where her voice was coming from, upstairs or downstairs.
"I had turned my phone light on and she saw that and I was able to get to her and I helped her out," Moioffer said.
"He literally came and got me and led me out," Kellow said.
Outside, Moioffer dialed 911 and gave the phone to Kellow. Then she asked where Sparky, her dog, was. He ran back upstairs and found Sparky in the room where he had been playing video games. He grabbed the Jack Russell terrier and took it outside.
When he discovered the fire, he tried filling a laundry tote in the kitchen sink, so he went back inside and tossed some water on the fire, but there was nothing he could do, he realized, so he left.
While they were standing in the backyard, the windows of the home blew out, Kellow said.
Firefighters were greeted with fire lapping out the windows on the bottom floor, reaching up to the second floor. Crews from
With everyone out of the house, Amerault said fire Capt.
"They did a nice job of knocking it down," Amerault said.
The fire damage was contained to the first floor, but there was extensive smoke damage throughout. Amerault did not have a damage estimate. The property is valued at
Helping hand
Neighbors Jennifer and
Moioffer lives in
Others living with Kellow this year include
Kellow's three grown sons are out of the house.
Steward said he was at Target at the time of the fire.
Moioffer called him and Stewart could not tell what was going on.
"I just came home after I got the call. It was like a wow or a shock moment because I saw the whole fire department outside," Stewart said.
Moioffer said he does not consider himself a hero, he was "just doing what was going through my mind when it happened."
"I told his dad," Kellow said, "Anybody that will listen, he saved my life and my dog's life. That's a hero, I think, for sure."
Moioffer said Wednesday around noon, as they were moving out of the
However, he had spoken with his father while playing video games, and his father usually asks his son if anything exciting happens to let him know.
About 20 minutes after they spoke, after the fire, he called his dad, again.
"I figured that qualified for a call," said Moioffer, who plans to stay with Kellow and play junior hockey in
Kellow's house karma
Kellow is no stranger to bad luck with her four-bedroom home.
It actually sits in the
In 2009, a microburst hit. The severe downdraft toppled a tree. It glanced off the back of the house and landed in the pool, taking all the patio furniture with it.
A few weeks after the storm, the chimney toppled onto the trailer in the driveway where she and her three teenage boys at the time were living. Water seeped into the home, buckled ceilings, damaged wiring, and ruined her possessions. In the spring of 2010, the trailer caught fire and wiped out most of her belongings.
The reconstruction of the home, built in 1948, ran into roadblocks.
She had to wrangle with the
She did not have enough money to complete the job, so over the years, she would take her tax refund and do some work. It took about 10 years to get the home finished. Two weeks ago, she had sheet rock in the sun room painted for a graduation party.
"To know I have to do this again, it will be beyond depression," she said.
Kellow's friend, Danvers resident
"She's an amazing friend and I she would do the same for me," King said.
You can watch Danvers firefighter arrive at the fire at https://www.facebook.com/DanversFire/videos/312783269670777/
Staff writer
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