“I think it was a God,” said Mark Wingo
A neighbor’s doublewide had caught fire. Fires in doublewides progress very rapidly and this was no exception. When Wingo saw it, the place was ablaze. Two elderly women — sisters — lived in it and they were trapped inside.
Wingo ran across the street and through the house. He located the first lady and pulled her to safety.
She shouted, “Mary is still in there.”
He went to open the door but combustion gas blew the door sideways.
“I wasn’t going to let her burn,” he said.
So, he went to the back door and ran in. He saw the woman’s bedroom engulfed in flames. He then took a left turn into an addition and lowered himself under the smoke. That’s when he saw the woman’s pink night gown.
He picked the woman up, but now he had to get up. He couldn’t go in the addition because the way in was now ablaze and the floor was burning out behind him. However, the two picture windows leading outside blew out, and he escaped with the woman. He said the timing of the windows blowing out was perfect.
“I had black smoke up my nose,” he said.
He wasn’t out yet. He was in he garage and couldn’t open the garage door. There was a Toyota 4Runner in the garage with the keys in it. The lady’s never left the keys in the 4Runner, but they were in the vehicle’s door that day. He started the 4Runner, busted through the garage door and got out. He up came a small hill just as John Singer and his partner, from the rescue squad arrived.
“That was burning hotter and more viciously that any fire I had ever seen,” commented Singer. He said there was large amount of black smoked.
Singer could feel the intense heat.
Singer insisted on taking Wingo to the hospital to have his airway checked. He was afraid Wingo’s trachea would close as he had inhaled super-heated air. He didn’t want to go, but Singer talked him into it. As it turned out, he was OK.
One lady was fine and did not need to got to the hospital. The other was taken to the burn unit at Wake Forest but, after 36 hours, the let her go home.
During all the time Wingo was in the burning, smoke-filed house, he heard a voice telling him where to go. At first he heard a voice that sounded like his late son telling him where to go. Then he heard a much deeper voice speaking to him. He believes it was God helping him.
Now that he has been through this, he believes he has found his purpose in life. He is going to look into becoming a firefighter.
Singer is amazed Wingo had got through that inferno without inhaling hot gasses. He was also amazed the woman had been in that blaze with no sign she had been in the fire. Winger said that when she was in the burning room, the smoke was swirling around her, but it seemed as if a force kept it away from her. She was not singed, although Wingo had the hair on one side of his head singed.
