Fire Survivor Recalls Lost Friends, Escape
Student says a "lucky jump" from top floor saved him from inferno.
Oct. 30, 2007 — -- As the University of South Carolina continues to heal after a North Carolina beach house fire Sunday killed six of its students and a student from Clemson University, the world is getting know the stories of the victims and survivors.
Of the six people who escaped the blazing beach house, Fredrick Wylie was the only one on his floor to survive.
Wylie, who is known as Tripp to his friends, said he was unsure why he awoke during the fire.
"I don't remember smoke waking me up," he said tonight on "Good Morning America." "I don't remember an alarm waking me up."
Yet for some reason Wylie woke up and opened his bedroom door twice.
"I opened the door a second time and it seemed the thick, black smoke started pouring in. That's when I decided to go to the window and see what my options were," he said.
As flames engulfed the house, Wylie said there was fire burning to his right side. He then saw his second-story window as his only option for survival.
But jumping out of the window proved difficult, not only because of its location, but also because of what lie beneath it.
"You couldn't just jump straight down. There was concrete going down to the canal," he said. "I was just lucky enough to jump far enough to make it to the canal. It was a very lucky jump."
But other students in the house weren't so lucky. In fact, Wylie lost two of his childhood friends in the blaze Justin Anderson and Travis Cale.
"They loved life," he said. "Justin Anderson had a personality … that would grab any stranger off the street. Travis Cale — he and I definitely [are] the best arguers I've ever known. Everything was a friendly competition between us."
Cale, 20, went to high school in Greenville, S.C., along with Wylie and Anderson.
Anderson had spent time watching his school's college football game with friends earlier in the day before the fire, according to his family.
Victim Emily Yelton, too, attended that same high school and was a cheerleader. Friends said the Clemson University sophomore was loved by all.
