By Jacqui Jeras, Red Cross Communications Volunteer

It was supposed to rain that Saturday afternoon in May, but that wasn’t going to stop 28 Rotary Club members in Rabun County from their mission. Leading the effort, Elizabeth Gill, who was determined to help as many people as possible learn about fire safety and install new smoke alarms during her first Sound the Alarm event.

“Maybe it could save a life, and that’s to me why you do all this stuff and why the American Red Cross is so, you know, helpful,” Gill said. “It can help to save a life, and that’s what we told people when we were out there.”

Gill knows the pain of losing a loved one in a fire. Her 37-year-old daughter, Rachel Thorn, died in an apartment fire in 2016. Thorn did not have a working smoke alarm in her bedroom, and by the time she woke up, it was too late to escape from the top floor. The stairs were blocked by flames. Through great efforts, the Atlanta Fire Department was able to reach her, and she was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she later died. Gill says she is forever grateful to the firefighters whose efforts gave her enough time to see her daughter and say goodbye.

“I’m convinced she would have lived if she had a smoke detector in her bedroom.”

Gill has turned her grief and gratitude into positive action. “As a person that lost a child in a fire, I’m always looking for opportunities to help other people.” She adds, “It’s a lifelong mission for me to do this. This is important.”

Gill has been busy serving others since her daughter’s death. She currently sits on five boards. She also hosts a luncheon for the Atlanta firehouse every year, where a plaque is hung in memory of Rachel. She says it’s her way of saying thank you to those who helped her daughter and countless others.

After learning about Sound the Alarm events in other communities, Gill knew this was something she wanted to do for her county in Northeast Georgia. Sound the Alarm is a nationwide program that the American Red Cross hosts, where volunteers and fire departments partner together to serve neighborhoods in need of working smoke alarms and fire safety education. The volunteers go door to door equipped with ladders, drills and big hearts to install the free alarms for residents who don’t have them or are unable to install a new one on their own.

Northeast Georgia Red Cross Executive Director Patti Duckworth praised Gill’s initiative and was ecstatic over the success of the day, where more than 50 smoke alarms were installed. “She just put all of her efforts into it. The day just went really well. She has such heart for the cause and goes out as a champion. She shows the need and why and helps everyone else get excited to go out there and help others in an area where people don’t have a lot.”

Gill says she has learned a lot about fire safety since losing her daughter and wants everyone to know just how critical it is to have both a working smoke alarm and an evacuation plan. The Sound the Alarm event allowed her to visit residents and discuss how to make a safety plan, write it down and talk about it together with all who are living in that home.

“I’ve learned that people need to know how to get out; they need to think about it and talk to your children about it, because when these kind of things happen, you know you’re panicking, and you’re hollering and you don’t think clearly, so you need to have discussed it. Really treat it like a serious thing,” she said.

Serving others has been very rewarding for Gill.

“I want Rachel to be proud. I know in my heart that she would be proud of my efforts, and to me, that’s the most important, is that Rachel’s proud. She was a very strong, dynamic character, and had she lived, she would have made a huge impact on the world; and if I can do that for her instead, to carry that message that would help other people, then I think that’s to me the most important part.”

Every day, seven people die in home fires, most often because of alarms that don’t work. Nationwide, the Red Cross has served more than 3 million people through home visits as part of Sound the Alarm campaigns like the one Gill helped organize.

For more information on Sound the Alarm events, to request a home fire safety visit, or to donate to support home fire relief, please click here. You can also download the free Red Cross Emergency App for fire safety information and help with evacuation planning.