Harris Street apartment fire displaces mother, son
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on August 26, 2018 3:05 AM
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News-Argus/CASEY MOZINGO
Barbara Parks wipes the soot from her hands after touching something on the bedroom dresser a week after a fire started in her apartment somewhere near her bed.
Barbara Parks picks up the burnt photos of family members when they were younger -- and she cries. She will never get those, or the ceramic Christmas tree that had belonged to her mother, back again.
A fire in the apartment that the 67-year-old shared with her son, Michael Parks, 47, destroyed Barbara's bedroom, and smoke damaged furniture and other items throughout the two-bedroom home at 1005 Harris St., Apt. 5.
It was the morning of Aug. 16. Barbara was at the heart center at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, due to heart problems. Her son had spent the night at the hospital with her, and came back to Goldsboro about 5:30 a.m. that morning, showered and shaved, and went back to the hospital.
"The fire department called me and told me that I needed to come back that my apartment was on fire," Michael said. "I didn't know what to really think. The fire department had called the people we rent from and got my number."
Michael explained that he was with his sick mother in Greenville.
The fire department got Michael's permission to force the front door down to get in.
Goldsboro Assistant Fire Chief Eric Lancaster said the fire department responded to the fire early that morning, forced entry into the apartment and found the fire in the back bedroom.
"Where the fire started on the bed, we could not find an ignition source or put our finger on what started the fire," Lancaster said. "The cause of the fire is still undetermined, and Goldsboro Police Department is doing an investigation at this time."
"I had been transferred to Greenville from Wayne Memorial Hospital because I have a heart condition," Barbara said. "I was still in the hospital when Michael told me about the fire. I asked the doctor to please let me go home the day of the fire, but he couldn't."
Both Michael and Barbara first saw what the fire had done to their home the next day, when she was discharged from Vidant.
"I just felt like I needed to see it because that's my belongings," Barbara said. "When you don't have the money to go out and buy more to redo, you appreciate what you've got."
And neither Barbara nor Michael can easily replace all they've lost because she is on Social Security and he's on disability. They didn't have renter's insurance.
"The smoke odor was real, real strong," Barbara said.
They were able to get a few clothes out of their apartment that Friday, but are not being allowed back in to take out their other belongings because of the ongoing investigation.
"The only things I could get were my dress clothes," Barbara said. "I seldom wear dress clothes every day. My everyday clothes are still in the drawer. I seriously doubt they're salvageable because as long as that smoke's been in there, it's going to be hard to get that smell out."
The smoke also damaged the furniture in the home, as well as the washer and dryer. The washer was just a few months old.
In addition to having a heart condition that requires medication, Barbara is also diabetic, and all the insulin she had in her refrigerator was ruined.
"I'm on several different kinds of medicines, and after the fire, what I don't have, I don't use," Barbara said. "I really don't know what to do."
The mother and son also had a new freezer in a small outside room, stocked with food.
"But they turned off the electricity and we can't get to the freezer," Barbara said. "So everything in the freezer is still there and spoiled."
Barbara and Michael are getting some help from the American Red Cross, but that goes only so far.
A couple of nights, Barbara and Michael had nowhere to go, so they slept in their red station wagon, parking in a department store parking lot one night and down by the river another night.
"That's unsafe," Barbara said. "It's too hot to sleep with the windows rolled up. And one night when we were sleeping in the car, I fell coming from the bathroom, and the doctor does not know if there are some fractures in my arm. He's taking X-rays. It was dark, and I couldn't see under my feet."
For the past few nights, Barbara has been staying with her granddaughter. But her granddaughter has two children, and Barbara wants to impose on them as little as possible.
"I cry at the drop of a hat," she said, tears streaming down her face. "Nobody wants to be around me when I'm like that, and I don't blame them. Everybody has their own problems, and I don't want to put more on them."
Michael has been staying with a friend.
They are looking for another apartment that they can afford, but haven't found anything yet.
If anyone has anything to donate, both Barbara and Michael need clothes. She wears an extra large blouse and extra large pants.He wears an extra large shirt and size 33-30 pants.
"And if I can't get the smoke out of the furniture, there's no way I can keep it," Barbara said. "So I'm going to need just about everything to furnish a home. I can't afford that stuff right now. This is an extra expense we hadn't counted on. It's just made it hard."
They are also looking for a box at the post office where they can have mail sent, but that's an added cost.
Both are happy to just be alive.
"We never thought this would ever happen to us, not in a million years," Barbara said. "If we had been there when the fire broke out, I believe I would have been burned.
"I ask God every night not to let me give up. To be honest, I do want to give up at times. But if I ever give up, I'm gone. It will take some time, but we'll eventually get back on our feet."