SAN ANTONIO – Three kids escaped safely after their Northeast side home caught fire Monday morning.
“This was the room it started in,” mother Yvette Gutierrez said. “This is pretty much the middle part of the house.”
The Camelot Volunteer Fire and Rescue chief said the flames were sparked by a television plugged into the wall.
"That's all it was,” Yvette said. “It was an old TV that wasn't even on."
Yvette and her husband were at work when the fire started. Their three kids were fast asleep.
The fire could have easily ended in tragedy if the stench of smoke had not woken up eight-year-old Isabella.
"I saw my brother's TV was on fire,” Isabella said. “I started hitting it with the rag. I tried to get the fire extinguisher but I couldn't find it."
So she woke up her brothers.
"He was about to put water on it,” Isabella said. “I told him because it's an electrical fire something might happen to him, so I told him not to do it."
The kids grabbed the family cat and ran to a neighbor’s house where they called 911 and watched as firefighters put out the flames.
“I lost everything,” Isabella said. “I’m just glad my family is safe and sound.”
She’s a pint-sized hero whose quick thinking saved lives.
“I learned it from school,” Isabella said.
Those lessons kept the family together.
“Could be much worse,” Yvette said. “We could be standing here without one of them. We're just here without a house."
The Gutierrez family did not have insurance and is asking for the community’s help. Donations can be made through a recovery fund at IBC Bank called “Yvette Gutierrez – Yvette’s Family Fund.”
