MADISON, Ind. (WDRB) -- Cell phone video captured the sound of sirens and the orange glow of fire filling the night sky in Madison, Indiana. Jennifer Bates was far too close to the blaze for comfort.
"All I could see is a wall of fire," said Bates, the owner of Colonial Flowers on Second Street. She lived upstairs in the historic building, which was built in the 1800s, and owns a similar building next door. On a fateful night in late October, the buildings caught fire. Bates said she didn't hear a smoke alarm; her dog woke her up.
Bates and her pets made it out of the building safely, but the fire was bad. Everything inside burned quickly.
"I got up the next morning and didn't have a pair of shoes to wear," Bates said. "I lost everything."
Well, almost everything. Before the fire, Bates was busy putting together floral arrangements for an early morning funeral. She saw those flowers through her shop's window as flames and smoke moved closer. That's when she heard a friendly voice say, "We'd get them."
BJ Combs, a volunteer firefighter, went into a burning building to grab some flowers, ensuring a grieving family wouldn't be without them during their loved one's funeral.
A picture snapped during the fire shows BJ Combs, a volunteer firefighter, going into the burning building to grab the flowers, ensuring the grieving family wouldn't be without them during their loved one's funeral.
"What a super guy," Bates said.
In typical firefighter fashion, Combs said it was all in a day's work.
"You try to do any means possible to help out in any way you can," he said.
For Bates, Combs' action was a moment of kindness in one of her darkest hours that she'll carry with her forever. As for her flower shop, new blooms are ahead.
"Everybody keeps asking, 'What are you going to do?'" Bates said. "We're going to rebuild. This is my home. This is my life. This is my family."
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