LYNNWOOD — Bruce Markham had just finished driving his 93-year-old mother-in-law around to her appointments at about noon April 8, when he saw smoke billowing out of Violet Brown’s house.
“I slowed down as I passed the house then something in my head clicked—I thought ‘I better go look,’” said Markham, a Lynnwood resident.
He pulled over and walked around the front of the house, at the 16900 block of 44th Avenue W., trying to get 911 on his cell phone when a woman pointed toward the back door of the house.
“I saw the lady and dropped the phone and started after her,” said Markham, a Vietnam veteran.
There was fire coming out from the window and door above steep stairs and the fiberglass patio cover was ablaze over 87-year-old Brown’s head, who was near collapse at the top of the stairs.
“I ran up there and grabbed a hold of her and I said ‘is there anyone else in the house? And she said ‘no,’” Markham said. “I tried to hustle her down, we went one step at a time because she could hardly walk. I was tempted to throw her over my back, but had surgery recently so I didn’t.”
Meanwhile, the flames kept getting bigger, electrical wires were sparking and glass was falling all around them.
Enter Byron Strolberg, of Arlington. He said he saw the smoke and drove to see what was going on.
Strolberg jumped out of the car and tried to look in the windows and door to see if he could see anyone, he said.
“Flames were coming out of the door right next to me and I didn’t see anyone,” Strolberg said, “all of a sudden the power line crackled and broke and fell in the bush right next to me.”
Strolberg said he heard a person yelling, “Someone’s over here.”
Going to the side of the house, Strolberg saw Markham and Brown making their way down the steep stairs.
“The glass was exploding out at us,” Markham said. “We were almost to the bottom and I yelled for help and a man came to help and got us the rest of the way down.”
Strolberg said that as he helped the pair, “Just when we got to the bottom, the roof above the patio that was on fire above them came down where they had been standing, the woman’s hair got singed.”
Markham said, “Everything just caught fire, just as we were getting her to the top of the driveway.” He said the first firefighters arrived about that time.
Despite the trauma, Strolberg said, Brown appeared to be doing well.
“Violet handled it very well and was very strong in the matter,” Strolberg said.
Markham and Strolberg said it was a natural instinct for them to help, they didn’t think twice before they jumped in to save Brown.
“One of the worst things is dying by fire,” Strolberg said,. “If I could help someone from having that happen, I will.”
Markham said he doesn’t feel like he’s a hero.
“I just went and helped her down the stairs,” he said.
He added, it didn’t dawn on him at the time all the dangers surrounding him.
“I just knew she needed help – didn’t think, just jumped. In that situation, you just do it,” Markham said. “And I looked around and it was just me.”
Markham said it was a good thing Strolberg, who he’d never met before, showed up when he did.
“It was hard for me to get her the rest of the way down,” Markham said.
At home later that day, Markham’s wife arrived from work about 5 p.m., unaware of what her husband had just been through.
“I said to her ‘quick, quick— look who’s on TV,’” Markham said as his picture was on the nightly local news broadcast from the fire scene.
“She said, ‘I often wondered what you’d do in a pinch like this— and now I know.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
