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Brunswick woman meets dispatcher who she says helped save her life

The smoke detector that set off the alarm also sent a signal to the ADT home security's monitoring center in Jacksonville, where a dispatcher called 911.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A family credits its home security system for saving not only their home from a fire in the beginning of January but for saving their lives as well.

Before Nakita Foreman and her 4-year-old daughter even realized there was a fire on the other side of the wall in their home, 911 had already been called.

"I was just sitting there with Amber Kate on the floor," she said. "We were watching TV and you hear this alarm. Not in a million years would you think it’s a fire that’s blazing down your master bedroom."

The smoke detector that set off the alarm also sent a signal to the ADT home security's monitoring center in Jacksonville, where a dispatcher called 911. 

"You see the movies," Nakita Foreman said. "You see the flames. You see the fire, but you never know what to expect, so as soon as I opened my master bedroom, it was unbelievable."

A candle in the master bedroom sparked the fire at the home in Brunswick, Ga. While the ADT dispatcher called 911, Foreman, who was five months pregnant and home alone with her toddler and their dog, ran outside of the home to safety. A neighbor ran to the home and helped contain the fire until first responders got there. 

”One of the things that the firefighters said was ‘you’re lucky.’" Foreman said. "He said, 'if it wasn’t for that alarm system, then there’s no telling what would’ve happened, so you’re definitely lucky,’” Foreman said.

Monday, Foreman and her husband Jeremy Foreman, thought they were just being interviewed by ADT about their experience. During the interview, the doorbell rang.

Dejuanni Edwards, the ADT dispatcher who called 911 that day, was on the other side of the door.

"Listen, you're the bomb dot com," Jeremy Foreman said.

"We want to thank you so much," Nakita Foreman told her.

Edwards said she gets about 200 calls per day, many of them false alarms. She said she was just glad she could do her part to help that day.

"I am grateful and I am thankful to you for saving my family, for saving the house, for just doing what you do as a good person," Nakita Foreman said. "I really appreciate it. There are just no words I could put into sentences that could show how grateful I am to you at that moment at that time."

They also were reunited with the firefighters who responded that day.

"You're not lighting any more candles, are you?" one of them joked with Nakita.

"No, all of the candles are gone out of my home," she said. "I'll relax another way."

ADT representatives donated $5,000 to the Glynn County Fire Department, and $5,000 to a nonprofit that supports first responders.

The Foreman family, forever grateful to everyone who helped them that day, knows it could've been much worse.

"This was just a perfect day for us to meet everyone that was involved and to be able to appreciate everyone," Jeremy Foreman said, "and know the value of everyone and the role they play in your life even when you don't know that they're playing that role." 

The Foremans are currently rebuilding their master bedroom. 

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