When 14-year-old Daniel Cheatham woke up the morning of Aug. 23, he knew something was wrong.
“I woke up and I started smelling smoke,” Cheatham said. “I tried to go downstairs, but downstairs was hot.”
“I noticed there was a lot of heat rising up from the stairway, so I went into my mother’s room and I heard my little brother under the bed crying,” he continued. “I grabbed him and I picked him up. I told him we had to get out.”
“I kicked down my sister’s door,” he said. “She was asleep at the time, but I told her to open the window.”
“She got up, opened the window, jumped out of the window,” Cheatham continued. “I took my little brother and dangled him out the window. She caught him and then I jumped out of the window right behind him.”
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He was describing the morning his family’s two-story apartment burned at the Carrington Townhomes complex on Corona Drive.
The soft-spoken Cheatham, who is still struggling with shoulder pain, is still trying to process what he went through.
“There was a certain drive in me,” he said, when asked how he reacted during the fire.
“Some things I can’t explain.”
His mother, Monica Miller, left the apartment just before the fire to go next door to her cousin’s unit to see if her cousin could take her son to school.
“My neighbor Shanice was outside,” Miller said. “She was in her car. She saw them jump out of the window. After they were safe, she came and knocked on the door and is like ‘Your house is on fire.’”
“I am like, ‘Oh my God!’” Miller recalled. “I just broke down crying because I knew then that we were losing everything … except for each other.
“We had us.”
Upon hearing of the fire, Miller went to a neighbor’s apartment unit and broke the window in an attempt to wake him for fear the fire would spread.
“I didn’t want nobody else to get hurt,” Miller said. “My kids were out. I didn’t want anybody else’s kids to get hurt.”
“The blessed part that made me really happy is when I went back, I was able to see my baby’s bikes,” she said.
The Orangeburg Department of Public Safety was contacted shortly before 9 a.m. and the first truck arrived within six minutes of dispatch time. A primary search confirmed all occupants were out of the structure.
ODPS determined the fire was accidental, having started when cooking materials within a pot caught on fire on the stove, according to a fire report. Fire extended out of the cooking vessel and affected adjacent combustibles.
The damage to the apartment and belongings was estimated at a total of $13,500.
The firefighters were able to confine the fire to the first floor of one apartment and the fire was reported under control within 14 minutes of arrival.
Orangeburg County EMS and the Office of Emergency Services assisted in the response.
The story of the fire caught the attention of Orangeburg County Council Vice Chairwoman Janie Cooper-Smith.
Cooper-Smith is creating a resolution to honor the bravery of the children.
Miller said Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler has also provided assistance to the family.
Following the fire, the family continues to come to terms with its aftermath.
“It was horrifying,” Miller said. “It was scary, but I am blessed now to have my kids and some place for us to live in.”
The family is currently living in another apartment unit in the Carrington apartment complex, but are having to sleep and eat on the floor as they lost all their furniture.
“Right now we are trying to get back the material things which we lost,” Miller said. “We need beds, we need tables, furniture and clothes. We need a lot of things a house would need.”
The family is seeking resources from Goodwill and other groups.
“We lost everything, but the help from the community and any other resources – we would appreciate it,” Miller said.
Miller, who has worked in North Charleston as a contractor with a cleaning company, has not been able to work because her car broke down, preventing her from commuting.
“I am in the midst of looking for another job,” she said. “I am going to need that to get assistance with next month’s rent. I am really ready to work.”
In the meantime, Miller says the family is taking it one day at a time.
Daniel continues to struggle with shoulder pain and 16-year-old Audrey continues to struggle with back pain. Both continue to go to Orangeburg-Wilkinson High School.
“They are pushing through,” Miller said. “They are being supportive.”
Miller, who lacerated her hand from breaking out the window, says she is doing better. Isaiah, the 3-year-old, was not injured in the fire.
When asked if he thought he was a hero, Daniel hesitated with Miller saying, “I consider him a hero.”
He then said, “I can say that in my mother’s eyes.”
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