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Family of rescuers mourns their loss
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Related Topics: Baltimore County
Baltimore County (Map, News) - The stunned family of an elderly Baltimore County woman on Wednesday mourned the loss of their matriarch, who died after being pulled out of a house fire by her firefighter grandson early Tuesday morning.
“Our entire family is involved with the fire department in some way,” Cynthia Bury, the deceased woman’s daughter-in-law, said Wednesday.
“We know how to help other people in fire trauma situations, but we’re at a lost to how we can help ourselves right now.”
As flames ravaged their house in the 2700 block of Alderwood Avenue near Lansdowne around 1 a.m. Tuesday, Bury — a county emergency medical technician — and her 11-year-old-son escaped through a window and called for help. But 70-year-old Myrtle Bury was trapped upstairs.
Cynthia Bury’s older son, a firefighter with the English Consul Volunteer Company, “was the first person to arrive on the scene,” she said.
He braved the intense heat and billowing smoke to rescue his grandmother.
Myrtle Bury, who was in cardiac arrest, was rescucitated and taken to St. Agnes Hospital. She was transferred to the hyperbaric chamber at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she died the same day, according to Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County Fire Department spokeswoman.
The fire, which had quickly engulfed the two-story wooden frame, was allegedly caused by an electrical shortage and rendered the house uninhabitable.
Wednesday afternoon, Cynthia Bury and her husband Robert, an EMT with the Baltimore County Fire Department, were sitting outside a next-door neighbor’s house with their firefighter son, who declined to give his name. All were visibly upset.
Still, Robert Bury managed to think of others — expressing his gratitude for the response time and tremendous effort demonstrated during the blaze.
“No one could have given more than [the firefighters] did,” he said. “This was a textbook operation; they responded in a matter of minutes. I am extremely thankful for their effort. They did everything possible.”
Crews from the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Co. and Halethorpe Station braved the flames alongside Baltimore County fire departments.
Colleagues of the Burys expressed sympathy for one of their own.
“Cindy is currently on bereavement relief,” said Capt. Ed Sipes from Halethorpe Station said Wednesday. “She has our support.”
Rabbit figurines and white wooden beams remain after the blaze was extinguished. While the loss of a family member and personal possessions lingers in their minds, the Bury family intends to remain in the community.
“We’re going to re-build,” Cynthia Bury said. “We’d lived in our house for 17 years and we aren’t going anywhere.”
