George Henry, Gleaner Writer
Valerie Notice, guardian of three-year-old Twain Newland, yesterday walks amid the remains of her razed house while holding the infant who was saved from being burnt to death by Jermaine Urghart, in Mt. Moriah, St. Ann, on Friday. - PHOTO BY GEORGE HENRY
SPALDINGS, Clarendon:
MEMBERS OF the rural community of Mount Moriah in St. Ann are now singing the praises of an 11-year-old boy who singlehandedly saved a three-year-old infant from a burning house.
The heroic rescue took place some time after 8:00 a.m. last Friday while school was in session at the Mount Moriah Primary School where brave Jermaine Urghart is enrolled as a grade six student.
Audrey Blake, who teaches at the school, gave an account of the feat as Urghart was absent at the time of the interview. She related that Urghart told her that he saw smoke coming from the direction of the house where the infant was while he was at school.
"He went to the scene and was viewing the blaze when he remembered that an infant was living there. He said he ran straight through the front door, through the burning flames into the room where the infant was," said the teacher.
A BRAVE HEART
"When Jermaine got to the room, which was also on fire, he grabbed little Twain Newland from a bed which had just started to burn and ran from there back the same route he took when he entered the house, to the outside without being scorched by the flames."
She said Urghart, a quiet and reserved student who hardly plays, but sometimes sleeps in class, has proven that he has a brave heart, risking his own life to save a helpless child.
"He said he did not stop to think about his life; all he thought about was the life of little Twain," said Ms. Blake, who teaches grade five.
Audrey Notice, the grateful guardian of the child, told The Gleaner that when she saw courageous Jermaine emerging from the flames with the little boy, she felt excited, even though she had lost everything, except two appliances.
Giving The Gleaner an account of the rescue, she said she left the house early that morning to transact business. On her way back, Notice said she got a call that her house was on fire. On reaching about 50 metres from the house, she said she saw smoke and rushed to the scene.
Ms. Notice said upon reaching the house, she used her hand to break a window, but was unable to enter and went to another side when she saw a man and called him to assist her.
The man, she said, used a concrete block to break a door for her to enter the burning house. But at that point, the infant was already out.
She said the Christiana Fire Station was summoned, but by the time the fire unit arrived (with an inadequate amount of water to fight the blaze), all was destroyed. Only cooling-down operations were possible.
Notice, who along with her children is now staying with family members, said loss is estimated at more than $2.3 million. The four-bedroom house was not insured. The cause of the blaze has not been ascertained.
