FORESTVILLE, Wis. — A 911 dispatcher in Wisconsin is used to receiving emergency calls -- but not from her own home.
Door County 911 dispatcher Marisa Anderson took a call on Friday about a fire at a residence in Forestville, and when she checked the coordinates, they pointed to her neighborhood, WBAY-TV reported.
“All I heard was kids yelling ‘Mom!’ and I thought maybe it was kids yelling for their mother,” Anderson told the television station. “I just remember looking at my partner and saying, ‘That’s my house.’ They had me leave right away. It didn’t really hit me until I was halfway down County S and I saw the black smoke off in the sky. That’s when I broke down.”
Anderson’s 12-year-old son, Landon Anderson, woke up to the sound of glass breaking, WBAY reported. He gathered his sister and his sibling’s friend from the family’s camper and waited at the mailbox until first responders arrived.,
“Had they been up in her room I don’t know that they would’ve been able to make it out because the hallway and everything was filled with smoke,” Marisa Anderson told the television station.
“That’s about 10 loads of relief right off the bat that we don’t have to find a victim,” Southern Door Fire Chief Richard Olson said.
Olson praised Landon Anderson, who broke his leg during the blaze.
“We were very fortunate that Landon came out of the house, got himself out, got everybody else out and called 911 and stayed out of the house,” Olson told WBAY. “When we go to schools in the fall for fire prevention week this is exactly what we tell the kids. The message is learned that they have a meeting place outside and both he and his sister went to the mailbox just like is planned for them to do.”
While the children were able to escape the fire, the family’s three dogs, four cats and a bunny died in the fire, according to the television station.
“(Landon has) taken it really hard because he feels he could’ve gone back in to get the pets out. My pets were like my children and without them I’m pretty lost right now,” Marisa Anderson told WBAY. “I just keep thinking it’s time to go home. We gotta let the pets outside. We have to feed the pets. I just – I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed.”
The Anderson family has started a GoFundMe page to cover their losses.
