NORTHPORT– A decision by brothers Franklin and Romey Fraser to search out the source of black smoke, and their subsequent actions helped save the life of a Northport resident.
When they pulled up to Jason Butler and Cheryl MacNeill’s Queen Street house, in the port community tucked next to the Town of Alberton, early Friday envening another individual at the scene told them Butler was still inside.
Upon opening the basement door, they heard Butler calling out for help.
“Spur of the moment,” said Romey Fraser in describing what happened next. They felt their way down the basement steps through the thick smoke, located Butler and pulled him out.
MacNeill and the couple’s four children were not at home at the time.
Fraser estimated the smoke had settled to within six inches from the basement floor when they found Butler.
Alberton fire chief Kenny Ramsay speculates Butler became disoriented as he tried to fight his way through the smoke of his one-storey home and, instead of going through the door that led outside, he went through an adjacent door that led to the basement.
There is a landing halfway down that leads outside, but Butler had fallen right to the basement floor.
“They heard his cry for help and they went down through the smoke and, very heroically, pulled him out,” Ramsay said in describing the actions of the Fraser brothers.
The brothers had him outside by the time the fire department arrived.
Butler was taken to Western Hospital in Alberton and subsequently transferred to Prince County Hospital in Summerside suffering from smoke inhalation.
Ramsay said the call was received at 7:13 p.m. and the house was fully engulfed when the first firefighters arrived. He said the emergency was reported as a structure fire with possible entrapment.
Alberton responded with 23 firefighters and all of their vehicles.
Tignish responded with three vehicles and assisted on the scene for an hour. O’Leary was called off while en route. Alberton firefighters remained on the scene for about five hours.
Provincial fire marshal Dave Rossiter was on the scene Friday night and listed cigarette smoking as the cause.
“The fire originated in the middle of the living room, and that’s what we’ve contributed the cause of being.” He said the fire started in combustible material in the room.
Rossiter said the house was extensively gutted. Asked if it could be salvaged, he indicated “It would be highly doubtful.”
He said the responding departments “did a good job as far as holding it back and knocking it down and getting it out.”
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