(*PLEASE Share Gofundme link)

My name is Casey Monroe. I am neighbor and friends with Brian, wife Liz, and two daughters, Emma (10y), and Chloe (3y). They live in the Stonecreek section of Sweetwater and experienced a tragic house fire this past Tuesday, Oct 7th.

They left their home to go shopping for some more hay for outdoor Halloween decorations and returned less than two hours later.

Emma (10yo) just got off the school bus, as they were arriving home. She went to open their front door and saw pure black through the front door clear glass, and heard the smoke alarms going off and didn't open the door.

She called to her parents, who ran to the front door and realized there was a fire in their now smoke filled, once beautiful home.

Their disbelief immediately turned to fear and concern for their two beloved family pets who were home, Lulu, their 11yo Yorkie, and Benny, 10 mos old little goldendoodle puppy.

As overwhelming smoke poured out when Brian opened the front door, they called 911 and ran to the back. Similarly, smoke and heat poured out of their home, when he opened the back door, and the increase in oxygen caused the fire and heat in the kitchen to blaze up dramatically. Knowing Benny's crate was close in the kitchenette, Brian risked his life, low crawled in, located the kennel and dragged it out with Benny's little motionless body. The family was certain he had perished.

EMS arrived at that time (within 5 minutes of their emergency call), and found Benny had a weak pulse and worked on him and gave him oxygen, assisting him to regain consciousness!

Benny spent an afternoon and night in an oxygen chamber at Spicewood Vet, who released him to the family Wednesday morning. I had the pleasure to volunteer and care for little Benny following his discharge for three days and two nights. He is sleeping more and more, as his coughing has lessened, and I am happy to say Benny is doing very well!

It had been impossible to enter the home to search for Lulu due to the overwhelming toxic smoke, fire and heat. Lulu had tried to escape the fire, smoke, and alarm noise, and had run upstairs and hid under their daughters bed. Firefighters arrived with a 7 minute response time to the home, put out the fire in full gear and found little Lulu's lifeless body in a house search.

In addition to the loss of 11yo pup family member Lulu, the family also experienced complete loss to toxic smoke, all their personal belongings, furniture, household goods, etc. It is a total loss per fire inspectors and they currently have only the clothes on their backs.

The Ellis' currently are in emergency temporary housing and will be renting a home back in Sweetwater starting next month, for the approximate twelve month journey it will take for their home to be literally torn down to interior framing and rebuilt from the fire, toxic smoke and water damage, and all furniture and personal items all need to be replaced.

We are fundraising to help the Ellis family, and show them our community support by contributing a gift of love and hope to their challenging journey of rebuilding and recovery!

* NOTES for community safety and awareness - The cause of the fire was a Dyson vacuum’s factory lithium battery with the vacuum plugged in. Fire Investigator has seen a lot of similar house fires and recommends unplugging your portable vacuum’s when battery is fully charged, AND ALL other items using Lithium batteries (i.e., Scooters, power tools, etc.).

*Brian also wants to share he recommends having a smoke/fire detector that sends an alert to your phone when the detector is triggered.

*To meet Gofundme request for more information:

1. Again, I am neighbor and friends to the Ellis family.

2. Funds will be transferred to my personal checkings, and immediately electronically transferred to the Ellis bank account, along with full accounting statements.

3. Funds will be spent on replacing losses due to catastrophic house fire where everything was lost; clothing, furniture, all household and personal items, pay for emergency housing, securing a rental home, help defraying insurance deductibles, etc.