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Wayehutta men rescue man from burning home

By Carey Phillips and Lisa Majors-Duff
Trailer Fire on Old NC 107 Herald photo by Scott Denmon

Cullowhee volunteer firefighters extinguished the flames that destroyed this mobile home on S.R. 1002 (Old N.C. 107). The home's only occupant, Weaver Brown, was pulled to safety by Alvin Mull and Eddie Ashe, two Wayehutta residents who were passing by at the time of the fire.

Two men from Cullowhee's Wayehutta community are being credited with saving the life of a man whose mobile home caught fire last Thursday.

Alvin Mull and Eddie Ashe were passing by the residence of Weaver Brown on S.R. 1002 (Old N.C. 107) across from the Mincey Development when they saw the blaze around 10 a.m. Sept. 14.

"I was going to East LaPorte to get my truck fixed when I saw the smoke," said Mull, who, ironically, was on his way to see mechanic Eddie Ashe, his nephew. "I saw (Brown) sitting in the door, just sort of staring at the flames."

Mull, who said he's known Brown for a long time, stopped and ran up on the porch.

Alvin Mull

Alvin Mull

 "Weaver looked at me and said, 'Are you going to get me out?' I told him I'd do all I could," said Mull, 67, who suffers from weakness in his right arm from an electrical shock he received years ago and in his left arm as a result of a stroke.

As Mull was pulling Brown out of the burning house, Ashe, 53, arrived on the scene.

"I was on my way to work when I saw the fire," said Ashe, who is recovering from a near-death automobile accident this spring. "I'm just glad we were there to help Weaver."

Eddie Ashe

Eddie Ashe

 After taking Brown to safety, Mull said he attempted to enter the trailer, fearing another occupant might still be inside.

"I tried to go back in, but the flames were just too much," said Mull, who recently went to work at Western Carolina University's University Center. "Later the firemen and J.P. Gallardo told me no one else was there."

"The trailer was totally destroyed," said Lynn Wilkes, assistant chief of the Cullowhee Fire Department. "It was totally involved when we got there."

Investigators say the blaze started when Brown left something cooking on the stove and apparently went to sleep.

Firemen from Sylva provided mutual aide.

Back to Archive: 09/21/00.