Saskatoon teens get Award of Merit for saving woman from house fire

The Saskatoon Fire Department (SFD) celebrated the heroism of three teenagers Monday by presenting them with an Award of Merit.

On Nov. 13, Avery Chubb, Georgia Vanderlinde and Quinn Hogan were driving home from Martensville. They were in the Silverwood Heights area when they noticed fire coming from a two-storey home on Zeman Crescent.

Saskatoon Fire Chief Morgan Hackl (left) and Mayor Charlie Clark (right) present Avery Chubb (l to r), Georgia Vanderlinde and Quinn Hogan with an Award of Merit after their quick thinking got a woman out of her burning house in Silverwood Heights. (Shane Clausing/650 CKOM)

“We were playing basketball and just dropped off a friend and there’s black smoke in the area,” Chubb recalled Monday. “The first instinct was, ‘We’ve got to go check this out.’ At that time, I called the fire department and let them know there was a fire there.”

After Chubb called 911, he and his friends noticed there was a woman inside of the home where the smoke was coming from.

Chubb and his friends had their instincts take over and went into the house to get the woman out.

“We went in the door and the woman was freaking out. She was freaking out saying her cats were hiding from her,” Chubb said. “(Hogan and I) looked around the house and Georgia ran upstairs trying to find the cats, but they were all hiding.

“We were like, ‘You’ve got to get out of the house and we’ll figure out the cats later.’ Once we got her out of the house with her purse and jacket, we just had to watch and hope the fire department got the cats out.”

Fire crews got to the house at 3:44 p.m. and within four minutes of their arrival, the fire had spread to a neighbouring home and caused the chimney of the primary home to collapse.

As the fire burned, Chubb, Vanderlinde and Hogan did what they could to comfort the woman as she watched her house burn and didn’t know the status of her cats.

“We were all concerned about the cats and we were comforting the woman because nobody else was there. She was crying and on her own,” Chubb added.

Thankfully, fire crews were able to bring the fire under control after an hour of battling the blaze and they were able to retrieve all five cats from the home.

Chubb and his friends said they stayed with the woman for about an hour before leaving and going home. While they went home, the woman impacted by the fire wanted to do something for the three who helped get her and her cats out of the burning house.

“Her daughter posted on Reddit trying to find us and (the message) ended up getting to us. She talked to us and sent us all Amazon gift cards for appreciation,” Chubb said. “They were very grateful and it was awesome to talk to them.”

The three teens said they haven’t chatted with the woman since getting the gift cards, but they hope she’s doing well.

As for how they feel about being given such a prestigious award, they all thought it was awesome and never imagined their instincts would get them an award.

“(Vanderlinde) texted me and was like, ‘The fire department wants us to go do an interview.’ I was like, ‘That’s crazy,’ ” Hogan joked.

They’ve all been called heroes at school and say their parents and teachers are super-proud.

At the end of the day, Chubb feels they didn’t do anything too out of the ordinary.

“We were just in the right spot at the right time. We did the right thing, I feel,” Chubb added.

Saskatoon Fire Chief Morgan Hackl said the three teenagers were the youngest group of people he’s presented an Award of Merit to in his time as chief.

He couldn’t have been prouder to see how the three responded to what was a scary situation.

“The future is bright for Saskatoon,” Hackl said. “They’re future leaders in our community and they made a quick decision, made the right decisions and made an impact on someone in a burning building.”

“They should probably consider a career in the fire service. They arrived on scene, assessed the situation (and) made sure it was safe to enter the home. They did all the right steps.”