The other night we were sleeping soundly in our beds and at 4:00 AM the phone rang. It woke both Sariah and me up. When I woke up I immediately smelt smoke and my half-awaken, brain gears started turning wondering what the smell could be coming from. Sariah answered the phone and she yells to me: “There is a fire in the back!” The call was from a neighbor calling to alert us. If you don’t know, our house sits next to the mountain. There are photos in the gallery if you would like to see. I jumped up and ran out onto the patio that is off our bedroom and I could see the glow of a fire two houses up in a large canal that runs behind our home. I ran back inside to get dressed, told Sariah to get dressed and be ready to evacuate if needed. Once I was dressed, I went back outside to look again and the fire hadn’t moved. I told Sariah I was going to go and check things out but from the looks of things there was no emergency because the fire wasn’t spreading.
I grabbed a shovel and was prepared to fight a fire. When I got to the fire things turned out a little different than I had planned. There was a pickup truck in the canal that had caught on fire. The fire was not spreading in the grass thankfully. A young man in his early twenties was lying on the ground in pain. We pulled the victim further away from the vehicle and called 911. Police, ambulance and fire trucks arrived. They put out the fire, and took the injured person to the hospital. By 5:00 AM they were all gone.
I was a little confused as to how the truck got there and why it was on fire. Trucks don’t normally catch on fire when they drive into a canal. Later, I got the full story. The young man decided he wanted to commit suicide. He drove up on the dirt road behind our home and started a fire in the front seat of his truck with barbeque briquettes and lighter fluid and was breathing the fumes and smoke in hoping to kill him self with carbon monoxide poisoning. Someway unknown to the victim and everyone else he drove off the road and into the canal which tossed the burning coals all over the cab. The truck caught on fire. The man at this point got scared for his life (which is humorous since he wanted to die in the first place) and crawled out of his truck to safety. This is when we arrived. The young man was treated with minor cuts, bruises and mouth/throat damage from breathing in the smoke.
I wish I took photos during the chaos but I did take some when the tow-truck came and got the truck and some more after they left. You can see them in the gallery.
It was definitely a reality check to make sure that we are prepared if there is fire that is a threat to our home and family.