BEL AIR, Md. — Except for a few boarded-up basement windows, you wouldn’t know there had been a fire in the home on Brooks Road in Bel Air.
A pair of sisters watching television on the main floor didn’t know either, even as the flames spread downstairs, but Susan Carr says they thought they smelled smoke.
“I said, ‘Check your mom’, and so while she checked her mom, I checked the basement,” said Carr. “I opened the door, and I smelled smoke.”
Saved in the nick of time: Bel Air woman rescued from burning home
Susan’s sister wanted to immediately dial 911, but Susan thought she might be able to put out any fire herself.
“I went downstairs to look. It just happened so fast,” said Carr. “The house went up and by the time I realized it, I couldn’t… There were no lights. I couldn’t find my way out of the basement, and the fireman came downstairs and grabbed me.”
Just in the nick of time.
Susan’s sister, Tammy, recalls those crucial moments when Susan’s life hung in the balance.
“I was on the phone with 911, and I kept telling her, ‘My sister is downstairs. She’s yelling she can’t get out. She can’t see,’” Tammy told us, “And I’m like, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I knew if I went down there. I don’t want to get trapped. I’ve got to get my mom out. That’s my priority right now.”
Susan Carr suffered from smoke inhalation and was treated and released in a matter of hours.
The moral of the story?
“Get out,” advised Susan, “Get your stuff and get out.”
“You couldn’t see? You couldn’t breathe?” we asked.
“Exactly,” she replied.
