Girls' quick action stops disaster

Disaster was averted recently in a house on South Sprigg Street when a little girl and her sister responded quickly to a fire in their bathroom.

Thursday, 4-year-old Kaelyn Stinnett was upstairs with her two sisters and mother. It was about 7:30 p.m. and everyone was cleaning up before bed.

Kaelyn decided to go downstairs to the bathroom to wash her baby doll's face that was covered in chocolate from an earlier feeding.

Once there, she saw flames reaching from the counter to the ceiling. A candle had been left burning too closely to a flower arrangement.

"She started screaming 'Fire! Fire! Get out! Get out!'" said the girls' mother, Tana Stinnett, who rushed down to see what the problem was.

Close on her heels was Kelsie, who raced to the telephone in the kitchen and dialed 911.

She said she learned to do that in kindergarten last year.

"A fireman came to our school and taught us," Kelsie said.

Emergency averted

Upstairs, 2-year-old Madison began screaming in response to the frenzy around her.

It turns out, emergency personnel didn't have to go to the house because Tana Stinnett managed to douse the blaze herself, using a child's toilet-training seat.

"I just grabbed the bucket out of the middle of that potty chair and started throwing water everywhere," she said.

The bathroom curtains suffered, and the ceiling is scorched in one spot, but otherwise, no damage was done.

Tana Stinnett said she's proud of the fact the girls have learned how to react in an emergency.

Kelsie and Kaelyn have their own plaques, that their family had made for them. Their names are engraved, along with the words "Our little hero."

abuchanan@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160