News - Local/State

Thursday, Sep. 18, 2008

Girls save York couple from blaze

Official: Their quick actions are proof that fire education works

There are two little girls, next-door neighbors, who ran into the backyard to play Thursday afternoon with hair flying and smiles beaming, holding hands.

Caitlyn Norris, 9, and 11-year-old Megan Sutphin ran because they are alive and young. Caitlyn's father, Chris, nicknamed "Possum" all his life, and that's just fine by him, and his wife, Caroline, watched them and smiled in front of their ruined home because they, too, are alive.

Smiles because both Caroline and Chris Norris are alive because these two little girls listened when adults told them what to do in a fire.

Megan and Caitlyn met a couple of months ago when Megan moved in next door. They became inseparable. Trampolines, fishing, catching minnows, some girl stuff.

Add saving lives to their list of things they do together.

A fire started around 4:30 Saturday morning at the Norris home on Daves Road between York and McConnells. Caitlyn and Megan -- Megan came for a sleepover -- lay asleep on the living room floor. Caitlyn's parents were sound asleep in their bedroom.

"I heard the glass breaking in the door," said Caitlyn, a fourth-grader at Jefferson Elementary School in York. "I saw the smoke. I smelled the smoke. I could see the fire. It was right behind my head."

Both girls started to scream, "Fire! Fire!" as they ran for Caitlyn's parents.

"It was real smoky, and dark," Megan said. "But we had to go tell her parents."

She said this as only a sixth-grader who does not like boys yet can say it, as matter of factly as if she were saying that she likes fried chicken and hot biscuits and pink nail polish.

Caroline Norris woke -- screaming will do that -- and she ran from the bedroom. Chris woke and threw on some shorts and ran out to find, "the flames rolling up the wall and over the ceiling."

Caitlyn's grandmother, Patricia Garrison, had just told her a couple of weeks earlier not to panic in a fire but to scream loud for her parents. Caitlyn's parents had told her several times to knock out a window if there was ever a fire and she couldn't get out. Firefighters who went to Jefferson Elementary School had taught her to stay calm and know her escape routes. Megan's mother, Sally, said her family also talked previously about fire safety.

Chris Norris grabbed a blanket and called 911 and tried to put the fire out as both he and his wife yelled for the girls to get out. But even as she went toward the door, Caitlyn felt to see if it was hot. The firefighters had taught her a hot door meant fire behind it, so don't open a hot door. The door was cool, so they rushed through it.

"She was calmer than me," said her mother. "I was yelling for her to go through the door."

Everybody did get out. The girls knew to run away from the house to a safe place next door so the adults would know they were safe. Firefighters, and their parents, had taught them that.

Bethesda and McConnells volunteer firefighters were at the house in just minutes, but the mobile home that the Norrises paid off just six months ago after 16 years of payments is a ruin. They have insurance, but they lost everything. Because of the devastation, officials may never know exactly what caused the fire, said Charles Williamson of the county fire marshal's office. But one thing is clear: The girls' actions show fire safety education works, Williamson said.

Pumping the water for those fire hoses that dark morning was a longtime Bethesda volunteer named Bob Davenport. At a fire, he's Bob. The rest of his life he's "Your honor," Judge Bob Davenport, magistrate. This judge is a guy who has seen sorrow and meanness and heard every excuse ever told about why people act foolishly and selfishly and without regard for others. He does not give out compliments like jellybeans because not every day does he see greatness. But in the dark Saturday morning, he saw gallantry in two girls crying outside as the fire still burned.

"I told those girls they were heroes," Davenport said. "We all told them."

The family lost everything, except each other and the girl next door. They lost two cats named Snowbell and Tom, and a bunny rabbit named Daisy, and those deaths did hurt -- but what wasn't lost is all the Norris family cares about.

"How can I say how proud I am of these girls?" Caroline Norris said. "They did so great."

Since the fire, the family's insurance agency has been helpful, and the family has received help from the American Red Cross, churches, neighbors, friends and more.

"You realize that stuff can be replaced," Chris Norris said. "All that had to come out of that house was the people I love. And these two girls, they saved all of us."

Firefighters say to stay low in a fire because smoke rises.

"I didn't stay too low, I wanted to get my momma and daddy out," Caitlyn said.

Caitlyn, I think your parents and everybody else can give you a pass on that one. Even heroes aren't perfect.