John Kearse, a project coordinator for Virginia Natural Gas, was working in Norfolk with a team from pipeline construction company Southeast Connections when he smelled smoke.
On that cold February day, it would have been easy to dismiss it as a neighbor burning leaves. But the smoke had a darker quality, and Kearse had the feeling that something wasn’t right. That feeling paid off. He and the team walked down a block just to check and discovered a house engulfed in flames.
The men ran back to their trucks to grab fire extinguishers. By the time they returned, they found an older woman crouched on the front steps, screaming for help. Between coughs, she told them, “My mother’s still inside.”
“We could just feel the heat from the fire inside,” said Kearse. “[But] we knew we had to go in.”
The men made several attempts to enter, but the heat and smoke blinded them, and they couldn’t breathe. Still, they could make out the sound of someone calling for help. As Kearse and three team members began to fight the fire, SEC employees Ryan Nottingham and Emilio Amaya decided to crawl inside. They fumbled in the dark, searching and calling, until they found an 80-year-old woman lying motionless on the floor, barely conscious. “We told her we were here to help and to hang on,” said Nottingham.
Because of the smoke and the heat, the two men had to carefully drag the woman from the burning building. Her arms and legs were covered in burns, but she was alive—and thankful. “It’s just one of those things where we were there and able to do the right thing,” said Amaya.
The men protected and comforted the mother and daughter, giving them the coats off their own backs to help keep them warm until paramedics arrived.
Although Kearse has been employed with Virginia Natural Gas for 36 years, it was the first time he’d had to respond to an emergency of this nature. But he knew they had to act quickly, and his safety training kicked in. “Everything we do revolves around safety, from our operating procedures to interaction with the community where we work and serve,” he said. “There was never a second thought or hesitation about rushing to help.”