A Scary Night

Saturday, before the Lincoln High Marching Competition, my (bare with me here) Dad's cousin's daughter-in-law and son called me and asked if I wanted to babysit their two adorable kids Drake (4 years old) and Brea (4 months old). I happily agreed and told them that I would be over at their house as soon as I was done with the Links Marching Competition. (The competition went terrible, by the way, we got a 2.)

It started out like a normal babysitting job, I fed Drake his supper, and then bottle fed the warm, BLONDE, ball of sunshine. Brea is a very happy baby during the day, but at night she cries constantly because she tries to fight off sleep for some reason.

It was about 10:30. Drake had fallen asleep watching Open Season in his room, and the baby was sleeping soundly in her portable crib set up in the dinning room. I was sitting against the wall right next to the crib and slowly drifted off to sleep. I was awoken by the shrill sounds of  baby Brea needed her diaper changed. I lifted her out of her crib and changed the poop-infested diaper. I was about to put Brea back in her crib when a wave of smoke hit me. It was dark in the room, so I couldn't see the smoke, but  I could smell it. I hastily put the screaming baby back in her crib and rushed all around the house looking for the one thing that scares me the most. Fire. I searched the house, but could not find any evidence of a fire. I went back to the dinning room only to discover that the sent had gotten worse. I grabbed the kids and ran out the door. It never crossed my mind to call the fire department, I called the one person who I trust the most when a situation involves smoke and fire, my Dad. He told me that I needed to call 911 immediately. I did.

 

"Gage County 911 dispatch center, what is your emergency?"

Shaking, I answered the man, "Hello, my name is Annastazia Stofer, and I have no idea where I am at, and I think the house is on fire."

"Ma'am, is everyone out of the house? Are you a safe distance from the house?"

 

 

He had many more questions and I answered them all to the best of my ability. I was crying, and so where both of the kids. Then he asked me if I had the kids bundled up. I looked down at the two screaming kids. Drake was in my right arm, with his arm tightly around my neck, and in my left arm was Baby Brea. It then hit me, it was 35 degrees out side and those kids were out there wearing only their pajamas, and none of us had shoes on. I quickly took off my Syracuse Softball sweatshirt and put it on Drake trying the best I could to wrap him up. Then, I took off my sweatpants and wrapped baby Brea up in them to try to keep her warm. Now I was standing out there wearing only a tee-shirt and shorts. My whole body was shaking, I couldn't tell if I was just cold or having some sort of nervous breakdown. I noticed that I could barely breathe, I frantically reached for my inhaler in the pocket of my sweatshirt that was wrapped around Drake.

 

Finally I could hear sirens, the dispatcher hung up, and a police officer pulled up and was yelling at me to get the kids into the back of his car where it was warm. Soon after the kids where placed safely in the car, a firetruck came racing up the hill. Six firemen, suited up in full gear, ran into the house. I started crying harder when I thought of my Dad and how disappointed he would be with my inability to handle this situation calmly. The police officer asked me several questions, many of which I didn't have answers for.

 

After 20 minutes, the six firemen, protruded from the house. By this time I was calm, but still shaking. They explained to me that there was a layer of dust somewhere on/in the heat pump that burned, and that was why the smell intensified as it got colder outside. They said that they had taken care of everything and that it was okay to go back into the house. I grabbed the bundled kids and walked back into the house, still shaking.

 

I carefully laid Drake in his bed and he fell asleep right away. I grabbed an extra baby blanket and paced around the family room carefully rocking Brea to sleep. I placed her in her crib after she fell asleep, and then called Dad. As I suspected, he was disappointed in my inability to keep calm. I learned a few things from this experience. (More like I got yelled at by an angry over protective father about these things.

1. Call 911 immediately, don't call Dad first.
2. Make sure I have shoes and adequate clothing for me and all people under my care.
3. Know the address of where I am at.
4. Keep calm.
5. Always tell the firefighters/police officers that my Dad is a firefighter.

As a firefighter's daughter, anyone would expect me to handle this situation more calmly, but I'm not sure what happened. I knew that I should have done all of those things on that list with out even thinking about it, but I didn't. I hesitated, and someone could have gotten hurt. This incident has been giving me nightmeres ever since it happened, and last night I even woke up screaming. It's really hard to forget about.