Chase Henry headed to work down Arkansas Highway 94, thinking it was a normal Tuesday afternoon, just one more of a trip he’s made countless times.
When he crossed Sugar Creek on July 30, he glanced left as he usually does, expecting to wave to “the friendly lady” there by the horses. Instead, he saw black smoke rising from the eaves of her trailer home.
“I was on my way to work when I saw what seemed to be smoke shooting out of the north end of the house,” Henry said. “I called my employer and she said ‘Go take care of it,’ so I turned around as fast as I could and went back.
“There were two people already there who said they called 911. I ran to the front door but it was locked. I told the man to go plug in the water hose, kicked in the back door … there was a great amount of smoke. I had on a shirt and an undershirt so I pulled off one shirt and covered my face, walked into the house and started spraying,” he said.
The smoke was so thick that “I went to my knees and my undershirt caught fire. I pulled it off and went into the room. I kept spraying it down - about five minutes - trying to put out the flames.”
At that point,Pea Ridge police officer Chris Richards arrived and told him to leave the residence, he said.
“When we got there,” Richards said, “there was an individual at the back of the house … we had to pull him out. We attempted to gain entry to search from two different doorways, but couldn’t.
The smoke was too think. It wasn’t safe.”
Henry said he learned first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation but has had no training as a firefighter. Without access to proper firefighting gear, there was little else to be done.
Eva Simpson, died as a result of smoke inhalation.
Does Henry consider himself a hero?
“I’m not a hero,” he proclaimed. “I wasn’t thinking about myself. I drive by there every day to work … I would do it again.”
Two of Simpson’s daughters, Vicky Wilson and Martha Armstrong, disagree.
“He’s a hero,” the daughters of Eva Simpson say.
He risked his life trying to save their mother’s life; he saved the house and all the family memorabilia. Both women agree their mother, who had health problems and a weak heart, was probably no longer alive by the time he arrived.
“He couldn’t have done anything for her,” Armstrong said.
“She got her wish,” Wilson said. “She died at home;
she got to stay at home until the end, like Dad did.”
Their father, Gene Simpson, died in June 2009. Both women say their mother wanted to be with him.
“(Henry) thinks he didn’t do anything, but he did a lot,” Armstrong said. “They (the firefighters) saved the house. It saved precious keepsakes, the photo albums.”
“That would have been even more tragic,” Wilson said, explaining that her mother had bookcases of photo albums from as far back as the 1940s.
“‘Oh, Eva,’” people would say, ‘you’ve got your camera out again,” Armstrong remembered.
“She was an avid picture taker,” Wilson agreed.
Henry said that his lifesaving attempt left a lot of smoke in his lungs.
“I inhaled a lot of smoke.
They thought I had burn problems, but I didn’t,” Henry said. “There was a high amount of carbon monoxide in my blood, but that was the only problem I went through.”
His mother, father and fiance, Miranda Patrick, were concerned about him, but glad he was safe, he said.
He and Patrick plan to be married Nov. 23 on the Henry farm just southeast of Pea Ridge.
Henry, 22, is an Eagle Scout and a 2009 graduate of Pea Ridge High School.
“Chase has always been an outstanding kid from an outstanding family. He’s a great kid,” said Rick Neal, school superintendent. Neal was the high school principal during Henry’s student years. “I’m not surprised at all!”
“Right now I’m going to school and working as a caretaker at BOST, helping people with special needs,” he said. Henry is taking classes at both Northwest Arkansas Community College and the University of Arkansas studying veterinary medicine.
The second of four sons born to Gary and Ramona Henry, Chase worked with Dr. Gary France at Pea Ridge Veterinary Clinic.
Henry said he’s “been on a farm my whole life and worked with horses, cows.”
Henry said he wasn’t scared and, if faced with another situation, he’d do it again.
News, Pages 1 on 08/07/2013