40 years later, woman honored for pulling kids from fire

Gisela Hemphill was a 31-year-old Army wife in Newport News, Va., the day she ran into a neighbor’s burning trailer home and emerged with two young children moments before fire engulfed their home.

More than four decades later, Hemphill, who ended up raising her family in Colorado Springs, was officially recognized for her heroism.

In a ceremony to mark the 41st anniversary of the Oct. 8, 1968 rescue — and a few days after her 72nd birthday — Hemphill was honored Saturday with a medal and pin from the Newport News Fire Department. Nine Colorado Springs firefighters presented the laurels on the department’s behalf, surprising Hemphill just before a spaghetti dinner at her daughter’s Skyway home.

“I thought they were strippers,” she joked.

Hemphill — whose only notice at the time came from a brief mention in the local paper and a citation from her son’s Cub Scout troop — said she was home alone and ironing clothes when she spotted smoke at a neighbor’s trailer in the Warwick Mobile Homes Court outside Fort Eustis, Va.

Suddenly, she recalled, a 4-year-old boy ran outside, frantically shouting “Hey, Mom! Hey, Mom!” But the boy’s mother was nowhere to be found, and the smoke was intensifying rapidly.

Hemphill said she ran to her neighbor’s front door but was driven back by smoke and flames after she opened it.  She retreated to the rear of the trailer, entered through the back door and felt around in the smoke and darkness until she stumbled onto the youngest child.

“They were little ones, (ages) 1 and 2,” she said. “They weren’t coughing, they weren’t crying — nothing. I just grabbed them, each under one arm.”

The children safely tucked away, Hemphill ran outside and watched as flames spread through the home, destroying it before firefighters could arrive. She suffered burns to her face and arms but couldn’t bring herself to let go of the children when others came to help: “I was clinging onto them like crazy,” she said.

After telling her story Saturday, Hemphill posed for pictures with firefighters and was taken for spin around the block in a fire engine, with her three granddaughters in the back seat and her husband, retired Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Ted Hemphill, smiling from the driveway. In a letter of commendation, Newport News Fire Chief Kenneth L. Jones praised Hemphill’s “extremely brave efforts.”

Even though it took four decades for a proper ceremony, Jones said, her accomplishment was “undiminished by time.”

Hemphill beamed as she received her medals.

“Oh this is so touching — this is awesome,” she said.

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