Family pay tribute to Kildare hero after fire rescue

A GOOD Samaritan from Kildare was awarded a Bronze Medal at the National Bravery Awards for rescuing a teenager from a burning house last year.

Ballitore artist, Nigel Cullen, was on the way to pick up his partner, Marie, from her volunteer shift at The Old Hardware in Narraghmore on 23 March 2024 when he saw smoke “billowing” in and came upon a very serious house fire the village.

“I pulled in to see if I could help in any way,” said Nigel, who is originally from Dunlavin.

He spoke to the homeowner Carmel Haughton, standing outside her burning house in a state of pure terror.

“She was just outside the house looking in, in horror. The upstairs of the house was already on fire, and the place was starting to fill with smoke.” Carmel told Mr Cullen that her 17-year-old son, Max, was still in the house. Parental instincts kicked in for the man then as he ran up the stairs towards the heart of the fire.

“I have a kid myself,” said Nigel. “I decided, right, I'm going in here. I'm going to try and get this young fella out of here.” Mr Cullen described the next few minutes as “absolutely horrific” as he experienced a roaring fire, which he described as being similar to the sound of a plane readying its jets for take-off, a “hollow roar with the crackling of timber burning.” Nigel recalled reaching the top of the stairs to find the room on the left, Max’s room, completely engulfed in flames and “blue and purple smoke.” He began calling out for Max: “I was screaming for Max. I could hardly hear my own voice with the noise of the fire.” After hearing his name, the teen opened the bathroom door, holding onto a hand towel from the bathroom.

Max was taking a shower after work and it was only when the flames cut the electricity and stopped the shower, that he could hear Nigel calling for him Nigel then helped him down the stairs and out the front door.

Once he got outside safely with Max, Nigel went back in as it was initially feared that a second son was inside the house, although thankfully this was not the case.

Fire and the emergency services arrived and assisted all Nigel and the Naughtons straight away.

Nigel was put on oxygen and brought by ambulance to Portlaoise Hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation and a tear in his LCL muscle in his left knee. He compared the pain of smoke damage to his throat to the feeling of having hot tea poured down his throat for three days straight.

Nigel commended the “brilliant” work of the fire and emergency services for their help that day and feels terrible for the Naughton family who “lost everything” that day in the fire that burnt their family home to the ground.

“They lost everything,” he said. “It’s only a site now.” The Haughton family are immensely grateful to Nigel. 

“You hear stories about Good Samaritans in the world, but to actually have one in your own home is something else,” said Carmel’s husband Chris.

Carmel said Nigel completely deserved the bravery award.

“You hear about people leaving scenes like this with only the clothes on their back, but Max didn’t even have that,” said Chris.

“I was there, in another part of upstairs, trying to kick the door in to get my other son, but we only found out later that he had gone out without telling anyone!

“To be fair, I think some of the emergency services should’ve been awarded something for that day, because it was a hell of a mess.

“Fortunately, we had someone do something and not stand around holding out their phones.

“An awful lot of this has been a blur.

“People say you go through tragedy, and you’re unscathed, but I don’t think so,” he said, before sharing some of his newfound wisdoms from such traumas.

“A bit of a warning, but a couple of county councils have put in place by-laws that say if your house is burnt down, you must use the insurance to re-build it to an A-rating (BER cert),” said Chris.

“This rating usually cost up to €200,000 more than the retail value of your property, which the insurance company isn’t going to pay.

“You’d think that someone in government will change the law to raise the premium … and this must be done if you’re to achieve this new valuation,” said Chris.

The Haughtons have not been able to pay for a re-build, and instead, have moved into a 200-year-old cottage, about 12kms outside of Narraghmore.

“I hope that out of this tragedy something positive will come and hopefully, our story will be able to help someone,” said Chris.

“After the fire, getting somewhere to rent was night on impossible, and the council couldn’t help, because technically, we were homeowners.

“It was a litany of roll-on effects that you do not hear about.

“I’d like to see an umbrella group of similar survivors set up so we could help and advise the recently burnt out through all of this.

“Like, perhaps in every fire station there’d be suitcases full of a week’s worth of clothing for men, women and children, because when we went into Dunnes Stores that night it cost us over €1,000. It was traumatic.

“But we had fantastic neighbours who’d help anyone they can.

“Our granddaughter Rosie had moved out only three weeks before and had left loads of her clothes there.

“She was telling this to the people in Mel’s (the local) and everybody rallied around her. She was like a little celebrity!” chuckled Chris.

So, what did the family take from all of this?

“The ultimate last word is we still have Max, our youngest, and he gets another Christmas. 

“And that this happened because somebody else put their life at risk for a stranger,” he said.