A Hiram City Council member who rushed into a burning home to save her neighbors was sworn in for a second term Tuesday night — just days after the dramatic rescue.
Councilwoman Melissa Bayardelle says she was leaving her neighborhood shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day when she noticed flames shooting from the second story of her neighbor’s home. Without hesitation, she pulled into the driveway and started banging on the door.
“There was fire on the second level. I pulled into their driveway and banged as hard as I could,” Bayardelle said.
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When no one answered, she noticed the lights were still on inside. The door, she said, was unlocked — so she ran in.
“Fortunately, the door was unlocked, so I allowed myself in,” she said.
“I was screaming and yelling, ‘Hey! There’s a fire. Your house is on fire!'”
Upstairs, Isaiah Richardson and his girlfriend Dalasia Mitchell were just getting ready for bed. Richardson says at first, he didn’t understand what was happening.
“I said, ‘Whose house?'” he recalled.
“She said, ‘Sir, it’s your house. Get out.'”
The couple escaped as flames quickly engulfed the roof. Richardson says they had no warning.
“The fire started on the roof. There was no smoke or anything through the house, so we had no clue,” he said.
The home is now uninhabitable, and investigators are still working to determine the cause. Richardson believes fireworks may have sparked the blaze.
“There was a lot of fireworks going on in the neighborhood,” he said. “We have some tall pine trees in the back. So we’re thinking a firework caught something in our gutter on fire.”
During Tuesday night’s council meeting, the couple hugged Bayardelle and thanked her publicly for saving their lives.
“The roof collapsed on the second floor. That could have been us laying up there dead asleep,” Richardson said. “She saved our lives that day.”
Richardson and Mitchell say they lost everything in the fire and are now raising money as they work to rebuild.
CBS News Atlanta will update this story as more information becomes available.
