By GLEN WERLING
Ossian Elementary School honored a third-grade hero Tuesday.
Serenity Perry was playing the video game “Fortnite” around 9:30 p.m. March 2 when she saw something outside of her bedroom window that wasn’t quite right.
It was an orange glow that was completely out of place. She decided to check it out and saw something that she will never forget.
Her house was on fire.
“I saw flames so I immediately burst out of my room and came running down the stairs and I said, ‘Nanna! The house is on fire!’” Serenity recalled.
Jackie Young went upstairs to check. When she came back down she got everyone to leave the house.
A ferocious northeasterly wind caused the fire to roar through the attic of the house at amazing speed.
Serenity’s father, Shawn, said that once everyone was out of the house, his mother tried to go back in and rescue some keepsakes, but the fire was already sweeping through the house, located southwest of Zanesville.
The house burned to its foundation. Only a portion of the attached garage remains.
“And it’s going to have to be torn down,” Serenity said. “Everything’s just lost.”
Shawn had been away at a friend’s house helping him hang a TV and hookup its surround-sound. His mom had called him earlier to let him know that it was Serenity’s bedtime and he needed to come home to put her to bed.
That’s what he was planning to do when his mom called again. This time it was to tell him the house was on fire.
He thought she was joking and told her that wasn’t something to kid around about. She told him she was serious — the house was on fire. He rushed home only to see that his home was engulfed in flames.
He swept Serenity up and took her away from it to keep her from being further traumatized by the site of everything they owned vanishing into smoke.
“She could have been in bed,” Shawn Perry said. “That’s the scary part. If I had already been home and had put her to bed, it would have turned out worse.”
“I’m just glad I was awake,” Serenity said.
To recognize Serenity’s bravery Ossian Elementary School Assistant Principal Theresa Casto spearheaded a recognition for the third grader Tuesday at the school’s gymnasium.
Serenity was presented a red T-shirt that read, “She needed a HERO, so she became one.” She also received a number of gifts from her OES family including a plush pink cat to replace her favorite stuffed cat she had lost in the fire.
The presentation was surprise for Serenity, but not her father, who treated Serenity’s third grade class to pizza on his birthday, which was Tuesday.
And it wasn’t just the school that honored Serenity’s bravery. Firefighters from Markle, Uniondale, Roanoke, Southwest Allen and Ossian fire departments were on hand as were representatives from the Wells County Sheriff’s Department, paramedics and Indiana State Police North Zone Commander Major Tony Casto all stood in line to shake her small hand and bent over to share a word of encouragement. Casto presented her with a special coin to commemorate her bravery.
“She’s pretty much an angel from God who saved our family,” Shawn Perry said. “I wouldn’t have my mom, my brother, my step-dad — I would have even lost her if she wouldn’t have found the fire,” Perry said. “She’s just like an angel to me.”
glenw@news-banner.com
