BROCKTON, MASS. (WHDH) - This was no fire drill.
While teaching a Zoom class Friday afternoon, Brockton teacher Betsy Doyle jumped into action when one of her students told her she smelled smoke.
Fourth-grader Theresa Quinones’s Ellis Street home was filling up with smoke and the fire alarm was blaring.
“The Zoom was turned back on because lunch just ended Theresa was saying that her fire alarm was going off,” Doyle said. Then she urged Theresa and her family to evacuate the home.
The shocking events leaving Doyle’s class stunned.
“I just saw wide eyes, open mouths,” Doyle explained. “That’s when I realized this was traumatic. And I ended the Zoom.”
Theresa and her two older sisters were able to get safely out of the house.
“I called her and I said are you out of the house and she said I’m out of the house, and I picked up the other phone and I called the fire department and they got on their way. And I emailed the school and let them know what was going on,” Doyle said. “And I stayed on the phone with Theresa while the fire department came. I just wanted her to be with me.”
Theresa’s mother Grissel was out running errands at the time and came home to fire trucks in her driveway.
“My daughter comes out and says I’m having an anxiety attack,” Quinones recalled.
The fire department said the flames were caused by a stick of incense that fell onto a pile of clothes in the basement. Crews were able to quickly extinguish the blaze.
“I’m happy and gratified,” Quinones said. “Thankful for Ms. Doyle, Ms. Park, for Theresa herself for being a courageous young girl to let me know at that moment she needed help. That she and her sisters were safe.”
Theresa said she is still a little shaken up but relieved things turned out well.
As is her teacher on the other side of the computer screen.
“I’m just so thankful that it happened this way that I was right with her and knew – she told me what was going on, I heard it, I saw stand was able to call and make things happen,” Doyle said.
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