Twist of circumstances leads couple to door of family’s burning house
A Lewes-area man is credited with saving the lives of a family who lost their Nesbitt Station home in an early-morning fire.
In a strange twist of circumstances, Frank and B.J. Shade were coming home from the Beebe Medical Center Emergency Department around 3:30 a.m., Saturday, July 18, and decided to take their dogs for a short walk so they could sleep in the following morning.
They had been at the emergency room since 11 p.m. with B.J.’s mother, Peggy Holtzinger, who was suffering from abdominal pain. She had moved into the Shades' Lewes residence that same day. While walking the dogs, they noticed their neighbor’s garage was on fire.
The family, Freddy and Carol Bada and their two children, were loaded and up and ready to leave for vacation.
Chief Deputy State Fire Marshal Randall W. Lee said extensive damage was done to the house and garage on Madison Drive, totaling $800,000 to $1 million, depending on how much can be salvaged. Nesbitt Station is located off Minos Conaway Road, across from Edgewater Estates.
The fire started in a three-bay garage, Lee said. Inside were two motorcycles, an Acura SUV and a Mercedes sports car. Parked in the driveway was a Toyota quad-cab pickup truck, 23-foot boat, Winnebago motor home and a cargo trailer. Everything in the garage and parked in the driveway was heavily damaged or destroyed. Lee said Shade is credited with waking the family up before the fire spread to the house.
“We were standing on the front lawn, and we heard a popping sound that sounded like gunshots,” Shade said. “Then we looked over at our neighbor’s house and saw the fire.”
Shade, who had experience as a volunteer firefighter with the Seaford and Lewes departments, ran to get his cell phone, and as he called 911, he also ran to his neighbors' house.
When he got there, the detached garage was fully involved in flames, with fire starting to spread to the home’s cedar shingles and roof. He began pounding on the home’s steel door, yelling his neighbor’s name, “Freddy, Freddy!”
Shade said Freddy Bada answered the door half-asleep, and at first he didn’t realize what was going on. But soon, the rest of the family was up, rounding up the family’s three dachshunds and getting out as fast as possible.
Shade said there was a moment of panic as he counted heads. “Their daughter hadn’t passed me yet. I couldn’t find her,” he said.
She was spending the night with a friend.
In the confusion, a pet bunny did not make it out of the house.
The house had working smoke detectors, but because the fire started in the detached garage, the detectors had not gone off at the time the family was stirred by Shade’s banging on the door.
“They were fortunate they got out safely. You can always replace things,” Shade said. “I believe everything happens for a reason. I’m just so thankful we decided to take the dogs out.”
Shade said the fire was on the roof and burning hot by the time the first Lewes Fire Department volunteers arrived around 3:50 a.m. He said the fire was so hot it melted some of the soffit and blew out a window of a neighbor’s house 40 feet away.
Shade said the family is staying with friends in the neighborhood until a rental house can be secured. Friends also helped the family salvage through the remains of the house over the weekend. He said the computer from the family’s business, Moonlight Architecture, was salvaged. “It was a real emotional time for all of us,” Shade said.
Volunteers from Lewes, Milton, Rehoboth Beach, Indian River, Georgetown, Millsboro and Slaughter Beach, as well as Sussex County paramedics, responded to the alarm and were on the scene until daybreak. It was the second major fire in less than a week within a mile radius. On Tuesday, July 14, a blaze destroyed a 70-year-old grain elevator and storage building in Nassau. As of press time Monday, July 20, the cause of the fire had not been determined, Lee said.
