Doorbell camera helps neighbours save 87-year-old living with Alzheimer’s from house fire

When the app on Suzanne Wright's sound that alerts her to activity in look of her elderly mother's domiciliate went away come together to midnight last Thursday, at first she thought a party had simply spilled out onto the street. 

That assumption vanished the moment she heard what one of them was saying.

“Almost immediately that was followed by Dean across the road saying, ‘You've got to get out, there's a fire,’” Wright told As It Happens guest host Karina Roman. 

“That was when realization hit, and I was in a state of shock.” 

Wright’s mother, Phyllis Day, is 87 years old and lives with Alzheimer’s. She lives alone in Wigston, a town in England, monitored by cameras placed throughout her house, with daytime carers and regular support from Wright. She is only by herself while she sleeps.

When the group of neighbours — still in their pajamas — rushed over, they initially believed they were speaking directly to the resident inside. They tried to warn her about the fire raging at the back of the house and asked whether they could break in to save her.

Though panicking, Wright says she managed to collect herself. She told the neighbours there was a key safe and gave them the code so they could get inside. 

Shortly afterward, she lost the camera feed entirely and was left with audio only.

“I was blind to what was going on,” said Wright. €œMy husband and I were by then in the car racing over.”

Inside the house, it was pitch dark, says Stephan Smart, one of the neighbours who ran in. After finding the lights, he says his first instinct was to cover his face, mouth and nose before moving through the smoke.

“I wasn’t scared at all,” Smart told As It Happens. €œI thought as soon I can find something to put over my face, I'll shoot up.”

Smart ran upstairs, checking the back bedroom first, but no one was there.

“That room was literally full of smoke, and that's because the fire was coming from that way, and luckily, she was in the front bedroom,” said Smart.

When he found Day, who is hard of hearing, Smart says she looked at him strangely. He shouted that there was a fire and that they needed to get out.

“I gather that the room was starting to fill up with smoke, so I gather in her own head that she knew there was a problem somewhere.”

It was only after later reviewing the doorbell camera footage that Smart realized the rescue had unfolded in less than seven minutes. 

Wright says that while she and her husband were en route, she didn’t yet grasped the  severity of the fire. Through the doorbell audio, she had heard someone suggest the fire might be in the garden alone, and not the house.

Seeing the damage afterward revealed just how dangerous it had been.

“[It’s] absolutely shocking,” said Wright. €œUpstairs, the walls are very black, et cetera, but I still kind of thought, ‘This will be all right, it just needs washing, and this will be alright, but my mum's insurance assessor has been round and has told me I've been downplaying it.” 

Wright has since taken her mother in while they investigate the cause of the fire and repair the home. She says her mother is extremely confused, often asking when she’ll be able to go home and having little memory of the incident itself.

“She's been inside the house and it makes her very, very sad and in the garden, but only for a moment and then it's forgotten,” said Wright. €œIn some ways, the Alzheimer's is a blessing right now.”

Smart’s wife called the firefighters, and their truck is briefly visible in the doorbell camera footage, pulling in shortly after the rescue.

A spokesperson for Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service told the BBC that “crews from Central and Wigston fire stations attended within seven minutes of the initial call to tackle the blaze. It was found to be accidental.” 

"While we understand that the neighbours acted in the best intentions in rescuing the resident, we would urge the public not to enter buildings that are on fire, for any reason, as doing so endangers more lives.

"Smoke inhalation can quickly disorientate, injure and incapacitate."

But Smart says he “didn't save the lady's life for any publicity or anything. I've done it to save someone's life.”

Wright says she hadn’t been particularly close to the neighbours before that night, but that has changed forever.

“My mummy wouldn't be here — my brothers and sisters — we would be devastated,” said Wright.

“We'd be really lucky to have our mum for 87 years, but we want her for another 87.”

Journalist

Audio produced by Nishat Chowdhury

---

---