A Georgia motorist helped save a family of 14 from a house fire after his GPS sent him along a road he had not intended to take.
Casey Sparks, 37, was driving home to Concord, Alabama, after playing softball in Dalton when he noticed flames near Lyerly, about 60 miles south of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
He arrived at the property on Rowlls Road shortly before midnight on October 17 and saw a teenage boy trying to tackle the blaze with a garden hose. The front of the house was already engulfed.
“The whole front of the house had caught on fire, so there was no point in even trying to help him put it out,” Sparks said. “It was too far gone.”
Sparks told his 13-year-old son to call 911 before entering the building and shouting for the occupants to get out.
Lyerly Fire Chief Tim Deberry said Sparks’ intervention had probably prevented deaths.
“He had actually come in, opened the door, started yelling, ‘Get out, the house is on fire!’ and started getting them out of the house,” Mr Deberry said. “If they would have been in there for probably no more than five more minutes, there would have been fatalities.”
James and Larita Burke, their 11 adopted children and one grandchild all escaped safely. Mr Burke, 58, said he had fallen asleep in a recliner while the rest of the family were in bed.
“The next thing I know, some guy was telling me in my living room, ‘Hey, you’ve got to get out of here. Your house is on fire,’” he said.
Sparks recalled finding a young girl in a hospital bed inside the burning property. He carried her towards the entrance, but had to find another way out when the doorway became engulfed.
“I scooped her up and tried to go out the door that I came in, but it was completely engulfed,” he said. “So I found another door and went outside and handed her over the fence and then went back inside to help get everybody else out.”
The motorist said his GPS had repeatedly directed him on to Georgia State Route 114, despite not taking that route on the journey to Dalton.
“I redid my GPS like two or three times and it kept telling me to go that way,” he said. “So it’s like ‘All right, I guess we’re going this way.’”
Mr Burke said he was grateful for the unexpected diversion that brought Sparks to the family’s home.
“He was on the wrong road. His GPS put him on the wrong path,” he said. “He’s never been down that path before, and he said he knew that something was bringing him down that road when he saw the fire from the top of the hill; he knew he had to take action. I’m so thankful that he did.”
Sparks said he had remained focused during the rescue and hoped others would offer the same help in an emergency.
“We’re from the South, man, and we help each other. We help our neighbours,” he said. “I mean, I would hope somebody would do the same for me.”
