Published: January 02, 2009 05:16 pm         

A miracle for Christmas

Mother pulls paraplegic daughter from burning home

GLENCOE — Teresa Click noticed a flicker outside her bedroom window as she was settling in for bed on a windy night two days before Christmas. Her mom, who was saying goodnight, stayed up late to wrap presents. If she had not, the two may not have seen the fire festering on the roof of a carport attached to their house. Click, 43, is paralyzed from the chest down from a hunting accident that happened in 1996, and her lower legs have been amputated. She could not have escaped on her own. “I was petrified,” Click said. “All I could think was that I’m going to burn.” Jean Kuhn, Click’s 66-year-old mother, mustered all her strength to pull her daughter from the bed. It would later take four emergency workers to carry Click to safety, but in that heated moment, Kuhn didn’t hesitate. Click squeezed tight as her mom dragged her by the arms across the concrete and carpeted floors of their one-bedroom home, trying to escape the haze of smoke and flames that engulfed their house and chased them from room to room. “She had told me a long time ago she would never leave me,” Click said. “I said, ‘Mom, we’re going to burn,’ and she said, ‘No, we’re not,’ and just kept pulling.” As soon as they made it out of Click’s room, they heard the windows shatter and the fire trailed them until they reached an attached greenhouse area that led outside. Kuhn grabbed a blanket from the living room to protect her daughter from the chilly night air, but when she went back to get a blanket for herself, the smoke and the heat was overwhelming, so she shut the door and they waited. Click’s stepfather, Jeff Kuhn, had rushed to the fire department where he serves as a volunteer. He returned within seven minutes to find his house consumed by fire, and his wife and stepdaughter, who he calls his daughter, huddled safely in the only part of the house that wasn’t burning. The family still can’t make sense of how Jean Kuhn was able to move her daughter. Jeff Kuhn said the incident could only be described as a miracle, but his wife insists she is not a hero. “I would have never been able to do it on my own had God not given me the strength to do it,” she said. All that remains of the house, in which Jeff Kuhn’s father was raised, is a heap of black soot and ruin behind a sawmill one mile north of Glencoe along Highway 108. The fire was so hot that even frozen deer meat stored in a deep freezer burned. The frame of Click’s bed and the outline of the greenhouse are about the only distinguishable items among the melted and disfigured household remains, which include family heirlooms like a hutch that belonged to Jean Kuhn’s grandmother. The Kuhns and Click are staying at the United Methodist Church parsonage in Glencoe as they recover from their second devastating loss during the month of December. Click’s son, Jon Hiner, lost his trailer home and his dogs in a fire two days before his mother barely escaped death. Jeff Kuhn said the support of the community has helped them cope. “It’s devastating, but at the same time, we have so many people who have given us everything that we’re in need of,” he said. “The response from the community here has just been unbelievable, so we have been well taken care of.” On Wednesday, the family members rejoiced when they received a kitchen table set from a friend. They are preparing to move into a trailer that was donated to them until they can build a new house. Glencoe State Bank has a fund for Click and Hiner, and the First National Bank of Pawnee has set up a collection for the Kuhns. Eleven years ago, Jeff and Jean poured the foundation for a new house, but they abandoned construction because of costs. Instead, they decided to remodel their existing home. They had been working on tearing down the breezeway and the car port where the fire started to build an addition for Click so they could all sleep under one roof. Jeff and Jean Kuhn had slept in a camper in the yard so Click could have the only bedroom in the house. When her parents move into their next home, Click is not sure if she will live with them. For now they are left with the foundation of a potential home from which to rebuild. “We’ll just take it one day at a time,” Jean Kuhn said. “Build it one stick at a time if we have to.”

     

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