Brothers driving by save couple from burning house

ANTHONY, Kan. (KSNW) — A Harper County couple says they are lucky to be alive after their house caught fire two weeks ago.

“Ken and Gene Carothers or my saviors,” Gerald Wolff said.

Two brothers who were driving by that night saw the fire, and pulled over and banged on the window to get the homeowners’ attention.

“I’m driving by here, I guess about the right time, and looked over here in the garage, and the car was on fire,” Ken Carothers said. “So we go in the drive, and we didn’t see anybody around, so I looked in the window, and Pat was sitting in there so I started beating on the window.”

Gerald Wolff and his wife Pat live outside of Anthony on a road that isn’t busy at night and with no neighbors close by.

“Glad to help,” Carothers said. “Anybody would have done it. I suppose it, I don’t know how long it might have been for the next car came along.”

Wolff says the Carothers brothers drove by right in time.

 “Another 20 minutes, you would probably be reading my obituary instead,” Wolff said.

Wolff says he’s thankful for the community he lives in.

“Us farm people have had neighborhood watch programs for 100 years or longer because we have to look out for one another,” Wolff said. “I would have done the same thing, and they would have done it for anybody else.”

Wolff says they lost everything. Family members started a GoFundMe.

“I ran out without any shoes, I grabbed a pair overalls and Pat had her housecoat on, and that’s basically all we got out of there because the fire had started on us before we knew about it,” Wolff said.

The Wolffs didn’t have smoke alarms in their house but say they will make sure the next place they move into has them.