Not all heroes wear capes, and while one may have come in handy for Tim Adams the night of June 13, he still managed to help his mother escape a raging house fire.
Although a fire had completely consumed the house of Adams’ mother, Patricia Scott, and everything inside it, Adams said, “We lost a home, but you know, those things can be replaced; you can’t get back a life.You only have one mother.”
Adams said he could not have imagined his night ending the way it did as he was simply shooting the breeze and exchanging a few laughs with a friend of his before retiring to his room.
“When I came in, I went to my room and said to myself I was going to go take a shower and wash some clothes, so I took off my shirt and shoes,” he said.
As he was watching television to kill a bit of time, Adams said he heard his mother call his name.
“When I went down the hallway and turned the corner, I saw that her bed was on fire. So, I immediately ran down to assist her and thought I could put it out myself because it wasn’t that bad,” he said.
Adams said he put water on what started as just a small fire and slid the window back to keep the smoke from getting in his mother’s lungs.
“By this time, I’m trying to smother it with a pillow and with a blanket and it just got out of control” Adams recalled. “So, I threw the blanket on it to keep from getting burned and I snatched her up off of the bed and said, ‘We gotta go.’”
Adams described how rapidly the smoke thickened and the fire caught on.
“It wasn’t waiting. It’s amazing how fast a house catches fire,” he said.
Adams said he was still without a shirt or shoes as he navigated through the burning house.
“I was fighting two enemies — the fire and the smoke,” he said.
Adrenaline coursing through his veins, Adams said he quickly grabbed his disabled mother, told her to “hold on” and dialed 911 once they made it to the clear of the kitchen.
“I don’t have time to talk and my focus was to get her out of there, even if it cost me my own life,” Adams said. “So God was good and he let us get out; I brought her from the back of the home, all the way to the front door.”
Adams said unfortunately due to his mother’s disability, she could not do anything to help herself and sustained second and third degree burns on her right arm.
“She’s had a skin graft since then, but other than that she’s doing fine,” he said.
Adams vehemently expressed his gratitude to God for allowing him and his mother to escape the house with their lives.
“A lot of times when people are faced with those sorts of things they panic, and I didn’t have time to panic or go for any help because my mother’s life was on the line and that fire was spreading. I had to react and God brought us both out of there safe and sound,” he said.
Adams said he has six other siblings who are pitching in to take care of their mother.
“After I got her outside, I was still kind of shocked like ‘What happened?’” Adams said. “It was like I was waiting on somebody to wake me up out of a dream.”
Adams said situations such as the one he and his mother experienced is why he is so intentional about telling God “thank you” every time he wakes up because, “You never know what’s going to happen.
“I heard it was three more people that were in a fire that same night,” Adams said. “Not just me, but God was good to all five of us and I don’t even know these people. … I’m just glad that it happened the way it happened and I’ll never forget that day.”
Scott happens to be a resident of councilwoman Lurann Thomas’ ward 4 and a fellow member of the Greater Hinds Street MB Church for more than four decades.
Thomas said as a lifelong friend of Scott and councilman who presides over her ward, she felt compelled to do something to help Scott and her family through such an unfortunate event.
“The sole purpose of trying to help Scott and her family is because they lost everything they had to a very tragic fire on June 13,” Thomas said. “After surveying the property, as councilwoman of Scott’s ward, I wanted to do something that will help that family.”
Thomas said she and Greenville Fire Department Chief Ruben Brown decided to partner together to start a GoFundMe for Scott and family in hopes that it would aid them in some capacity, whether it be clothing or even a new home.
“As a community, we want to band together and try and assist this family and try to restore their lives so they can have a proper place to live,” Thomas said. “It was her that day, but it could’ve happened to me or anyone else in the city of Greenville and so that’s why we’re putting together this wonderful effort to try and help her.”
Those who wish to make a donation to the Scott family can do so at https://gf.me/u/yat7s.
