Uncle makes heroic rescue in Georgia

New American, The, June 9, 2008 by Warren Mass

Early on the morning of April 19, Heather Obarr was home in Nicholson, Georgia. She was sleeping with two of her children, her eight-year-old daughter, and a six-month-old infant. In another room were her son, Seth, and her nephew, Garrett Sutherland. The two boys, who are cousins, are both four years old, and they apparently had the inexplicable fascination for playing with matches that boys their age seem to have. After the predictable fire started, things got even worse when Seth tried to use an aerosol can as a fire extinguisher.

"He tried to blow it out with an aerosol spray can, and the flames just spread," Steve Nichols, director of Jackson County Emergency Services and assistant chief of the Nicholson Fire Department, told the Athens Banner-Herald (Georgia). "It's really the worst scenario you can imagine."

Heather Obarr described the fire to reporters from Fox 5 News in Atlanta: "Someone was yelling fire, I got out two of my children, the fire was blocking between me and the two boys, Garrett and Seth."

Heather's daughter tried to get back into the mobile home to rescue her little brother and cousin, but when she saw it was futile, she ran next door to get Matthew Sutherland, Mrs. Obarr's brother-in-law, yelling, "Uncle Matt, Uncle Matt!"

Making three trips into the flaming home, Sutherland first rescued his nephew, Seth, then his own son, Garrett.

Seth received serious burns, but was released from the hospital sooner than his uncle and cousin, both of whom were burned more severely. The Banner-Herald for April 21 reported that both father and son were in critical condition, and that Matthew had received second- and third-degree burns.

Heather was full of praise for her brother-in-law: "He's a hero. My little boy wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for him."