TOLEDO, Ohio — It has been a little more than two weeks now since a south Toledo family of five was able to escape a burning home.
It was May 7, around 4:25 a.m. on the 400 block of Spencer Street in south Toledo.
Heather Beringer woke up around 4 a.m. to her young son screaming. Right away, she noticed the black, suffocating smoke. The flames were blocking the stairs so she, her boyfriend and three young sons couldn't get down to the first floor.
Beringer's boyfriend, J.D. Belcher, kicked the air conditioning unit out of their second story bedroom and jumped onto the porch below. He thought Beringer and the boys were right behind him.
"About 30 seconds went by and I started to panic so I ran around and got the ladder," said Belcher. "By the time I got back out to the front, she had two kids out and she was out. She just looked at me and said she couldn't find Chase."
"I don't know if I blacked out but I tried to turn around to get my other son because I couldn't find him and I fell out the window," Beringer said. "At the hospital, they told me if I was in there for ten more seconds, I wouldn't have made it."
Unable to get back into the house, Beringer ran to a neighbor's home to get help.
Meanwhile Belcher, who had a broken pelvis and wrist from a previous accident, climbed the ladder back into his burning home, found his 4-year-son in the hallway and jumped out the window with him.
"I'm not a hero. I'm a dad. I hope anybody would do that for their son," he said.
"If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here," Beringer said.
The family suffered smoke inhalation and minor injuries, but all five survived.
Firefighters told them the cause of the fire was electrical.
The family is in the process of rebuilding their home and a GoFundMe page has been set up to help them with the cost of rebuilding and replacing items and necessities. They did not have insurance.
They say they did have a working smoke detector, but the flames, which were very hot, melted it.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, fire can spread rapidly through your home, leaving you as little as one or two minutes to escape safely once the smoke alarm sounds.
Make sure you have working smoke alarms and check them regularly. Replace any smoke detector that does not sound when tested or is older than 10 years. There should be one on every floor and in every bedroom.
Secondly, get your family together and walk through your home and check for every possible escape route and exit.