Community steps up to help Crystal Lake couple who lost home in fire
Community members are helping a family displaced from their Crystal Lake home by a fire on Wednesday.
Fire crews responded at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday to a fire that broke out in a garage in a four-unit row of attached homes along Eletson Drive. No injuries from residents or firefighters were reported, according to the Crystal Lake Fire Rescue District.
George Scott, who lives in one of two homes deemed uninhabitable after the blaze, said his wife, Theresa Masini, was woken up by their dog, Coco, alerting her to the fire.
Masini had fallen asleep in her massage chair in the loft above the garage where the fire started. That’s when Coco started barking to wake her up, and she was able to wake Scott up before the fire spread, he said.
“By then, the house was blazing,” he said. “We had no shoes, no socks, and we lost everything.”
The fire created a hole from the garage all the way through the roof, Scott’s son, Kam Scott, said.
Scott’s children, including Kam and his daughter Brianna, started a GoFundMe for the family to get back on their feet after the fire. The fundraiser had collected more than $10,000 as of midday Thursday morning.
George Scott said the community support has been “overwhelming” and “incredible.”
“I feel like it’s ‘A Wonderful Life,’” Scott said.
The dog ran out of the home during the fire and was missing until someone found Coco, and she was reunited with her family later in the afternoon, Scott said.
“All of the people went out looking for our baby, they found her and got her home to us,” Scott said. “That’s worth a million bucks to me.”
George Scott and Masini own 24x7 Embroidery & Screen Printing in Crystal Lake. Scott also runs his own taxi driver service called George’s Guber Drive, where he frequently drives people in the area to O’Hare International Airport and elsewhere in Chicago.
“He actually lost his vehicle that he does his business in,” Kam Scott said.
George Scott said many of his former colleagues and students from when he worked at Crystal Lake South High School stepped up to donate money, clothes and food. Scott worked as an in-school suspension administrator and a coach for the football, basketball and track and field teams at the school.
“Some of the students that I had found out that Coach Scott was in this way and started coming over to my friend’s house and dropping off money,” he said.
Kam Scott said former students also donated clothes to the couple Wednesday.
Kam Scott describes his father as stubborn to ask for help, but he has been grateful for the community’s response.
“All of the support has been a major blessing, and it’s just a long road ahead,” Kam Scott said.