East Texas Man Saves 83-Year-Old From House Fire

By Dayna Worchel in The Tyler Morning Telegraph
What started out as a trip to an Applebee’s restaurant with a friend turned into chance to possibly help save a life for Chad Laney, 22. As Laney was driving down the 2500 block of Keenan Drive about 5 p.m. Sunday evening, he said he saw smoke pouring out of the garage and windows of Bill and Janice Connally’s home.

“A lady came outside and began freaking out, talking about her dogs,” Laney said. He said he didn’t see any flames, but Mrs. Connally mentioned her husband was inside.

Laney went inside to the living area to find the 83-year-old Bill Connally sitting in his recliner, but he was unable to get Connally to stand.

“He was sitting in his chair smoking a cigar,” Laney said. He added that Connally didn’t seem to be aware of what was happening around him as he pulled him out onto the front lawn of the home while he was seated in his recliner. The chair remained in the middle of the front yard with a plaid blanket draped across the still-elevated foot rest; a testament to what had occurred.

Tony Gumber, a fire investigator with the Tyler Fire Department said they were investigating the cause of the fire, but did not know the point of origin. Most of the damage, he said, was confined to the garage.

Mrs. Connally, 64, seemed shaken as she stood inside the garage of a neighbor’s home across the street. “I was standing in my living room and I smelled smoke — I opened the garage door and saw black smoke pouring out of the garage.”

She carefully answered all of Gumber’s questions.

Firefighters and neighbors helped Mrs. Connally capture her dog, a Boxer named Tut, who seemed as distraught as his owner. Her husband sat a few feet away, inside the warm cab of the couple’s pickup truck, wrapped in a quilt, and said he remembered his wife screaming that the garage was on fire.

A firefighter approached Connally and told him that a neighbor had offered his living room as a place to get out of the freezing weather. “Is the fire out in my house,” he asked. When the firefighter responded that it was, Connally asked to go back inside. With a little more convincing from the fireman, who said the home was uninhabitable, he agreed to be loaded onto a stretcher and taken to the neighbor’s house across the street.

The couple, who have been married for 36 years, were unsure of their next move. Mrs. Connally said she planned to spend the night at her daughter’s home in Carroll.

As for Laney and his friend Corey White, 23, they continued with their original plan to go to dinner. “I’m hungry — let’s go,” said Ms. White, as the pair hurried into the cold night.