The emergency dispatcher who took the 911 call from Kenneth Zerr, whose Missouri house had caught fire, urged the 84-year-old man to leave his home, according to local media outlets. But he refused to do so.
“He said that his wife was on the floor, wasn’t able to move her, and he was not going to be leaving her at the time,” St. Charles County Police Corporal Barry Bayles told KTVI.
His wife, Phyllis, was trapped in the bathroom while smoke billowed in their home, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Kenneth Zerr soaked towels in water and stuffed them under the door, hoping it would buy firefighters enough time to save them both.
“The dispatch told my father to come out of the house and my father said, ‘I’m not leaving my wife’ and stayed with her until the end,” son Andy Zerr told KSDK.
Crews with the New Melle Fire Protection District were called to the home early Thursday, Nov. 10, according to a news release. Upon arrival, they “found heavy smoke coming out of the roof of the home.”
Knowing two people were trapped in a bedroom in the back of the house, firefighters immediately went in and tried to save them, the department said. “They experienced high heat and heavy smoke conditions (zero visibility) throughout the residence,” officials said.
“The firefighters were able to make it to the bedroom and began to search, but unfortunately the floor began to collapse and conditions were worsening.”
The firefighters “made it out in the nick of time” as the floor began giving out, according to the Post-Dispatch. Outside, crews managed to slow the fire, allowing firefighters to reenter the home, officials said.
There, they found the Zerrs dead in a bathroom. Their son, Andy, said they died while holding hands, according to KTVI.
“They loved each other to the end,” he told the TV station. The couple celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary in September, according to KSDK.
They were both 84. New Melle Fire Protection District called their deaths “a hard hit for our small community.”
“All the crews on the scene did everything humanly possible to rescue the victims,” the department said. The cause of the fire is under investigation. New Melle, in St. Charles County, is about 40 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis.
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