Local first responder, family witness home go up in flames, ask community for help

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    Rutherfordton, NC (WLOS) — It’s a call no first responder wants to hear — a structure fire at their own address.

“My body started to tremble.” Jonathan Cichy said.

At the time the call came through, Monday night, Nov. 23, he was on the clock for Hickory Nut Gorge EMS responding to another call.

He said he immediately phoned his supervisor and headed home to Rutherfordton.

“It was definitely very moving and very difficult to respond to a call at my own house,” Cichy said.

While Cichy was on his way home, his son, Aidan, a junior firefighter, was reacting.

Aidan said he woke up to the smell of smoke and got his sister and pets out of the house before shutting windows and closing doors.

“(Aidan’s) quick thinking is probably what saved most of our worldly possessions,” Cichy said. “He was able to understand that if you can close off the fire from having access to different rooms.”

A mom and a firefighter herself, Heather Sanders said the family has experienced this before, when their previous home burnt to the ground in 2017.

“We kind of have an idea what we are about to go through again,” she said. “However, what we just went through and what we were just trying to recover from was really hard.”

The family hopes the community they help protect will come to their aid.

“As a responder, as somebody who kind of holds yourself in that mentality of, ‘I am here to help other people and to service my community’ — to then turn back on that and then say, ‘Hey guys, I kind of need your help,'” Cichy said.

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