<fontfamily>For Immediate Release:

4 p.m. Press Briefing Information
</fontfamily><fontfamily>A second press briefing was held at 4:00 p.m. (the first was at 11:30 p.m.) Gordon Bietz provided the following statement. Duane Pitts, chief of the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department, also answered questions from the press concerning sprinkler systems, and a summary of his remarks is presented below.
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Statement of Gordon Bietz, President of Southern Adventist University
Southern Adventist University
4 p.m. Tuesday, April 26, 2005

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<fontfamily>This has been the most difficult day of my presidency here at Southern Adventist University. I received the call about the residence hall fire shortly after 4 a.m., and later learned that one of our Thatcher Hall residents, Kelly Weimer (WI’mer), perished on the third floor of the building while trying to evacuate.

I just returned from picking up Kelly’s parents, her grandfather, and an aunt from the airport. They flew into Chattanooga from Illinois at 11:30 a.m. Kelly was a junior English major from Woodridge, Illinois. I can’t describe how devastating this has been for this family. They have visited with the medical examiner and are beginning to make funeral arrangements. My heart goes out to Kelly’s family and friends at this time.

We are having a Service of Remembrance tonight at 8 p.m. at our campus church, the Collegedale Church of Seventh-day Adventists. Our campus will join together to pray and remember together. Live video streaming of tonight’s remembrance service will be available from our website at www.southern.edu.

574 residents of Thatcher Hall were evacuated early this morning. Two other students were taken to Erlanger Medical Center, treated, and released.

The State Fire Marshall has not allowed any university officials onto the third floor of Thatcher Hall, so we have not been able to witness the extent of the damage. They are doing a thorough investigation. We do know that the fire was contained in a kitchenette/laundry area, a public restroom, and a lobby of the west wing’s third floor. The fire did not enter any student dorm rooms, although several doors experienced charring. We have reports of extensive water damage in the halls below the third floor.

At this point, the residents of Thatcher South, the back part of the residence hall, will be allowed to spend the night in their rooms. The other 421 residents in the main part of the dormitory are being relocated to other accommodations, including vacant rooms on one wing of Talge Hall and faculty and staff and community homes. Some of the residents have been able to visit their rooms and retrieve some of their belongings.

I want to praise our students and the courage they have exhibited. They have assembled in prayer groups with our faculty and counselors all over campus. This has been very difficult and traumatic on many of our students. Thank you, students, for supporting each other during this time so well.

The university’s Social Work Department has coordinated donations of supplies to the students. They have supplied personal care kits (towels, shampoo, etc.) for the women who couldn’t get back into their rooms, and have helped with organizing the gym for shower needs, etc.

I’d like to thank all the counseling volunteers coming in from other universities and colleges and agencies across town. Counseling has been available throughout the day for our students, and we will have counseling available at the Remembrance Service tonight at the church.

Our number one priority is to take care of the students’ needs as we respond to this tragedy.

Thanks go to the members of the many fire departments that responded this morning, as well as the police department.

We’ve been getting calls and questions about our fire safety protocols. We have one fire drill each semester in each dorm, and they are scheduled during the night hours. These drills are monitored by the Fire Marshall. Thatcher Hall was built in 1968 and is compliant with state fire codes for a building that age. There are smoke detectors in each dorm room. Campus safety officials report that the fire alarm did sound, alerting the women to quickly evacuate the building. The alarm system was last tested in December, 2004. The structural integrity of the walls in the west wing worked to limit the spread of the fire. The basement level of the building was sprinklered, as well as the Thatcher South section. Our long-range plan to install fire suppression systems in all our campus buildings.

Additional information, as well as some photos, are available on the university’s website at www.southern.edu.

Sprinkler System Question:
Questions concerning sprinkler systems were asked by members of the press. Duane Pitts, chief of the Tri-Community Volunteer Fire Department, said, “Sprinkler systems are for building protection, not life safety. If the third floor of Thatcher Hall had been sprinklered, it may or may not have made a difference. The primary life safety systems for the saving of lives are smoke detection and alarm systems. Thatcher Hall is equipped with both smoke detectors and alarm systems.”
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--
Ruthie Gray
Director, Marketing & University Relations
Southern Adventist University
www.southern.edu
423.236.2840
423.236.1831 (fax)

My daughter (who graduated as both my wife and I did from Southern) drove over to the campus this afternoon and ran into Bryan Stitzer, a nephew of mine who was working Campus Safety at the time. He was one of the first responders to the scene and had to back quickly out of the building because the fire in those first 3-4 minutes had filled the building with lethal smoke.

He was rather shaken by the tragedy as we all have been.

Some additional thoughts that may or not be appropriate at this time:

1. My daughter tells me that there were many false alarms at the time she was there as a student; people may have been slow getting out of the building because they assumed it was just another false alarm.

2. I will also confess that I have never heard anyone in 18 years of firefighting say that sprinkler systems were for the building only, not for the personnel the building contained. All the training films I've viewed on the subject emphasize the quickness with which the fire is extinguished so that personnel are safer (except for the lethal smoke). Depending on the heat, it takes only a minute or two for a sprinkler to douse a fire unless too much of the building is involved.

I know that smoke detectors do not always catch a fire. I fought a house attic fire that had been underway at least two hours at the time we arrived (smoldering). After trying to get to the attic from the outside, we opened the kitchen door - and the smoke detectors went off.

Valisa Wilson posted this on Southern's web site:

"I spoke with my friend Jen - one of the girls that was trapped in her room, and I guess my request is that prayers go up for the two of them. The statements about them have all been that they were treated and released. Which is true - however they are suffering some really scary trama. Physically I think they're ok - but I know they were both very shook up. And have to deal with flashbacks of thinking they were going to loose thier lives...
So Just keep them in prayer. "

News Release: Southern Adventist University





Fire Ruled Accidental by State of Tennessee Fire Marshall's Office



At 5:47 p.m., Bob Pollard, assistant director from the State Fire Marshall's
Office, announced that the fire scene investigation was complete and that
the fire had been ruled accidental. Pollard spoke to a small group of
administrators, policeman, and campus safety officials who gathered to take
a walk-through of the west wing on the third floor of Thatcher Hall.



"We've ruled out electrical, and we've ruled out arson," said Pollard. "We
can't give the fire department enough praise," he continued. "Their quick
response and quick actions from the time the fire was reported saved a lot
of lives."



"Every system the university had worked perfectly and functioned 100
percent," Pollard explained. "The smoke alarms did what they were supposed
to do. The alarms went off when there was only a small amount of smoke in
the building, which gave the residents time to evacuate."



"We can't explain why one resident went toward the fire instead of away from
it while everyone was exiting the building. This is a great tragedy that
there is no explanation for," he continued.



"A sprinkler system would not have avoided the loss of life in this
situation," said Pollard. "Sprinklers activate after smoke alarms and only
when the temperature has reached well over 200 degrees."



Pollard said that the prior planning and training the university had done
was evident. He also praised the university's Campus Safety officials for
their actions in response to the fire.






Vinita Sauder
Vice President for Marketing & Enrollment Services
Southern Adventist University
P.O. Box 370/4881 Taylor Circle
Collegedale, Tennessee 37315

1.800.SOUTHERN
423.236.2580
Mobile: 423.505.8103
Fax: 423.236.1831
www.southern.edu <http://www.southern.edu/>

Power for Mind and Soul

Thank you David for taking the time to post all of this information. I am an alumni from the SMC days and lived in Thatcher Hall for 3 yrs. I recall a number of Fire Drills......never imagining that one day it would be for REAL. Of course one never thinks that it will be real. BTW my niece who is currently an SM lived on the 3rd floor on that very wing. She's a bit grateful that she wasn't there.

Keep us up to date on how this all plays out. I know that the whole campus must be in shock.

God Bless.

Yes, Thank you David for keeping us informed. My neice also lived in the dorm and said that because there are always alarms going off she almost didn't leave. However, at the last minute decided that it would be best to leave.

Thank God.

For those wanting another perspective, read the Adventist Review's report of the tragic fire at Southern Adventist University on the Review website. http://www.adventistreview.com/2005-1517/news.html#2