A Lower Keys family that lost everything they own in a Jan. 19 fire is now finding something else — the compassion of the Keys community and its commitment to making things better for a neighbor in need.
Monday, Jan. 19 was a holiday, and Jason Wooter, a single father who works at Square Grouper Bar & Grill, was home with his two boys, a third-grader and an eighth-grader at Sugarloaf School. Wooter’s mother, Patricia Ellison, owns the home at 36 Blue Water Dr., where the four of them or lived with their dog, Bandit.
Ellison was out of the house and at work when the fire started around 10:30 a.m. on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
Five houses down, Trevor Tyler, the principal of Sugarloaf School, was at his own house, working on a project with his friend, Tim Tedesco, the deputy who works as Sugarloaf’s school resource officer, and Tedesco’s brother-in-law, Kenny.
“We were downwind and the smoke was so bad, at first we were convinced my house was on fire,” Tyler told the Keys Weekly last week.
The trio quickly traced the source of the smoke to a house five doors away, where another neighbor, Sean Caggiano, was already on the scene fighting the smoke and flames to find out if anyone was inside.
“Thankfully, the boys know me from school, so I was able to convince them to come out and come to me,” Tyler said. “I was somehow able to grab the dog, Bandit’s, collar and get him to safety. He was so scared. The kids were in shock.”
With firefighters en route, everyone in the neighborhood was knocking on doors, warning people in nearby houses in case the fire spread.
“Once I had the kids and the dog accounted for, Tim went up into the house to make sure no one else was inside,” Tyler said. “He came out with Jason, who assured us his mom hadn’t been home, and no one else was inside.”
The flames were 20 to 30 feet high by the time the firefighters arrived, Tyler said, refusing to take any credit for what he did.
“We’re just glad we were there and we and all the other neighbors did what anyone would,” he said.
In the immediate aftermath, volunteers with the American Red Cross’s Disaster Action Team took, well, action. They arranged for hotel rooms, food, clothing and immediate needs.
And then the community came together.
Lynn Bell, owner of the Square Grouper, launched a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family that as of Jan. 27 was $8,000 shy of its $28,000 goal.
“Jason, his two boys and their dog are OK, but they have lost everything,” Bell wrote in the online fundraiser description. “When I got there, Jason was literally barefoot with no shoes to his name. They have nowhere to stay locally and need our help with monetary donations at this time, as they have no place to store donated items. Please find it in your heart to help this family, a local, one of our own.”
