March 19, 2008
Bainbridge-- Just hours after it happened, investigators had already determined, this stove is where the fire started. "We think the grandmother just left a pan of sausage cooking on accident," said Bainbridge Public Safety Firefighter Brian Palmer.
After leaving for work she realized it, and tried to call her daughter Cortney Barr but it was too late. Barr woke up to the smoke of the already intense fire. "The mom had a 5 month old with her in a separate bedroom. She kicked one of the back room windows out and received a serious laceration to the leg," explained Corporal Marvin Knight.
Not being able to go through the kitchen, Barr ran outside to the other window where she believed her other daughter, 2 and a half year old Jonaria Barr was sleeping. "We had a lot of neighbors yelling and screaming telling us where, we had a lot of Samaritan trying to get the baby out from the side window here," Knight said.
Knight and Palmer were the two brave firefighters who rushed into the house to look for the child. "There was a bassinette in there. That was my first place to look. She wasn't in there. I looked up underneath the bed, couldn't find her," Palmer described. He finally spotted her lying face down in a hamper. "You could tell the child was trying to hide her face from the flames," Knight said. "I scooped her up rolled her over, and she moaned at me. I told Corporal Knight, lets go," said Palmer.
After first being taken to the hospital in Bainbridge, a plane from the Augusta Burn Center came to pick her up. "She does have some burns to her arm, hip area ,and leg," said Palmer. While the child will most likely have some scarring, investigators say doctors are confident Jonaria will fully recover.
Firefighters say the home is a total loss.
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