New Year’s Eve is the night of celebrating and welcoming the new year, but for one Palm City family, it’s the night they lost everything when their house burned down.
Jay Sharpe and her 11-year old daughter Sydney had just gone to bed when she heard her husband, John Lyon, suddenly scream.
“As soon as I opened the bedroom door I recognized that: this is bad,” Jay said.
She only had moments to act, the house was already in flames.
“I was just thinking: get out,” Jay said.
Jay and her daughter had to escape through the bedroom window since the rest of the house was already on fire.
“Once I got my daughter out I went back to try to get him,” Jay said.
The smoke was thick so she wasn’t able to see him at first, but John, a disabled veteran, made it out.
“He literally collapsed on the lawn,” Jay said.
He had to go to the hospital to be treated for second degree burns. The family lost everything that night.
“They didn’t have time to grab nothing,” said their neighbor Marty Schell. “Especially when you’re sleeping there’s not a lot of time.”
Now the community is coming together to help them out.
On Monday, Jay Spicer rolled a pink bike up the driveway, handing it to Schell.
“This is from the donations from the White Dove to replace the bicycle the little girl lost in the fire,” said Jay Spicer, fair manager at the Martin County Fair.
For the family, they’re just glad everyone is safe.
“I think what upsets me the most is what could have happened,” Jay said.
Sydney asked that night to sleep in her mother’s bed. Jay almost said no but something inside her told her not to.
“If I had made her, if she had slept in her room, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to her,” Jay said.
The family is currently staying in accommodations provided by the Red Cross. Friends set up a gofundme page.