Practice paid off for Kaitlyn Soules.
The 13-year-old Barrie girl received a Fire Marshal’s Public Safety Council Award Thursday afternoon, almost exactly a year after she saved the life of her father, her brothers and several family pets.
And it was due to her family’s fire plan – and their regular practising it – that she was able to remain calm and collected in the early hours of June 14, 2016.
Kaitlyn, then age 12, was awoken by the smoke alarm, so she went to wake her dad and brothers and call 911.
“My head was near the wall that was on fire. If the boys had smelled smoke they would have gotten out, but I wouldn’t have. I would have been toast,” said Kaitlyn.
“If I hadn’t gotten woken up with the smoke alarm, I would have been dead.”
She stayed calm and collected throughout the emergency, her father Dennis Soules recalled.
Barrie fire chief Bill Boyes says it’s people like Kaitlyn who play an important role in saving lives.
“Pulling up to a fully involved fire in a house and being greeted by the family upon arrival makes our jobs as firefighters much easier,” the chief said.
“We can fight the fire much easier knowing the family is safe and accounted for.”
Soules credited Kaitlyn for her bravery.
“She kept me calm,” said Soules, who times his kids’ fire exit skills during unannounced fire drills.
He walks the talk of fire safety. It was drilled into him by his mother, who was in a house fire when she was a child. His approach reinforced what fire safety officers teach in school classrooms – that having a fire plan is critical.
“We do fire drills once a month. I’ll even throw it at 3 a.m. on a school night and I’ll time it. They have less than 60 seconds to get out the front door and meet on the front lawn.”
Although she was calm – so calm as to encourage loved ones to get out of the house, to have her dad call 911 and to stop her dad from running back in to save pets – she wasn’t quite so calm this week when she was called to receive her award.
“Poor thing, she was shaking like a leaf,” said her father.
She had prepared a short speech, but due to her trembling, she didn’t give it to the crowd gathered in Toronto for the provincial awards ceremonies.
“That night, I acted out of love for my family. If my family and I didn’t practise our fire safety plan, that night could have ended way more tragic than it did. I’m so happy to still have my family,” she wrote.
“Please, everyone, it is very important to have working smoke detectors and a fire plan. You never know when an emergency can happen.”
