MYRTLE BEACH, SC- One family is counting their blessings after escaping a house fire Sunday morning on Racepath Street.
Schanski Hemingway says her daughter, son and three grand children were all inside the home when it caught fire. She credits a newly installed smoke alarm for saving their lives.
“I’m just so happy that my children and my grandchildren made it out,” said Hemingway.
Earlier this year, Horry County Fire Rescue and the American Red Cross distributed more than 120 alarms in the Racepath Community. Hemingway says they installed the alarm that alerted her family.
Her daughter Jaime Spivey was asleep in the living room when she heard the alarm go off.
“It kept going off, so I said let me get up and see what’s going on,”described Spivey.
Once she saw flames coming out of her mother’s bedroom, Spivey says she grabbed her three kids, woke her brother up and got out.
“I was shocked, I was afraid,” she said.
Spivey is certain that she would’ve died without the smoke alarm waking her up.
“I didn’t smell smoke or anything. I just heard the smoke detector,” she said.
Disaster Services Volunteer Dennis James says the American Red Cross installed about a thousand smoke detectors in the last year through grants and assistance from local fire departments.
“The more we try to get these smoke detectors out, we can stop the fire, but we can at least save the lives.” said James.
Horry County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Brian VanAernem says this was the second fire on Racepath Street where smoke detectors alerted the occupants and saved their lives.
