The Shadow
In the wee hours of March 1, 2024, the unthinkable happened to the family of Anthony Nicely. What is most likely every family’s worst nightmare: a house fire.
It was about 5 o’clock in the morning and 16-year-old Carter Nicely, Anthony’s son, was asleep downstairs in his room. He awoke to an abnormally warm bedroom and attempted to turn his fan on and was concerned when it wouldn’t turn on. As he looked outside his bedroom window, he noticed what he thought was light peering in and, believing it was daylight and that he might be running late for school, Carter proceeded to turn his light on. When it wouldn’t come on, the teenager knew something was wrong.
Carter, feeling something was wrong, instinctively checked the front porch and discovered a growing fire outside his bedroom. He sprang into action immediately, rushing up the stairs to awaken his family and alert them of the fire. His dad, Anthony —a Virginia State Trooper— ran downstairs to assess the situation. In a recent Facebook post, he wrote, “I jumped out of bed thinking something outside beside the house in the kennel or something had caught fire and I needed to get it away from the house before it caught the house on fire. So, I ran down the steps which leads directly out onto the front porch. As I ran onto the porch, [I saw that] the right side of my house including the front porch was completely on fire.”
As Carter called 9-1-1, Anthony yelled for his wife, Kristin Nicely, to grab their other son, Brody, and instructed them to get out of the house. Brody, as Anthony explained, “was sleeping upstairs on the same end of the house that was on fire directly above Carter’s room.” Within seconds of the family exiting the home, their house was engulfed in flames. All family members were accounted for without injury by the time help arrived on the scene.
On the evening of Monday, June 3, the Sharon Fire Department held a special ceremony to honor the efforts of Anthony and Kristin’s son, Carter, for his quick-thinking and heroic efforts that saved his family’s lives. Roger Muterspaugh, a volunteer at the Sharon Fire Department, was first to speak at the ceremony.
“The purpose of today is to award Carter Nicely, who’s standing out here, with a ‘Life Saving Award.’ This is a prestigious award that has only been given out by the Sharon Fire Department on one other occasion. I feel like, without his situational awareness and what he learned from fire prevention programs as a child, his family may have had a very different fate that day.”
Carter was then presented with a plaque for his heroism as onlookers cheered and snapped photos of the memorable occasion. Afterwards, Anthony Nicely joined his son in front of the crowd and offered a few moving words to the Sharon Volunteer Fire Department.
“The only thing I want to say is to thank you all [Sharon Volunteer Fire Department].” Nicely then paused briefly to tearfully hug his son. “We appreciate all your efforts and obviously we’re thankful to Carter for what he did, but for you all to get there that quick, we’re thankful for it.”
