By Cathy Loffland
The Haysville Times
Terry Bergen and Luther Holloway were working in a shop behind Bergen’s Aunt Barbara Chandler’s house. They decided to quit working around midnight and walked out of the shop and noticed more smoke coming out the house than just from the fireplace. Bergen and Holloway went in the house to make sure Bergen’s aunt was okay.
The living room was engulfed in flames. Bergen was the first one in the door to start looking for Bergen’s aunt, and they got seperated. Holloway went outside to call 911 and get help.
“We never even gave it a second thought that we were putting our lives at risk when we first went in the home,” said Holloway.
Holloway went back into the house and started looking for his friend and his friend’s aunt. He had to go back out a couple of time to get air.
Holloway headed to the back of the house and found Bergen lying on the floor and dragged him out of the house. Bergen was unconscious, and his skin was burnt off from the waist up. Bergen came to so he could tell his friend that he had found his aunt and had a hold of her until he collapsed.
The fire marshall calls this an act of heroism. “If anybody is the hero, Terry is the hero,” said Holloway.
Holloway feels bad because he was able to save his friend but could not save Chandler.
Bergen is in the Burn Unit at St. Francis Hospital. The doctors gave him a five percent chance to live, and Holloway says his friend is a fighter and will make it.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Bergen and his family.