Man unable to escape as trailer burns
A fire marshal says the 63-year-old Vietnam veteran was on a sofa that caught fire from a cigarette.
By JAMES THORNER
Published November 2, 2004
ZEPHYRHILLS - Since his hip replacement surgery, Bill Jameson tended to limp, with or without a cane.
That slowness of foot might have cost the 63-year-old Vietnam veteran his life Monday morning in a fire that charred his travel trailer in Zephyrhills.
An untended cigarette set a sofa ablaze, said Larry Whitten, a Pasco County fire marshal.
Jameson's body was found, one arm outstretched, just inside the door of his trailer in Peaceful Acres Mobile Home Park.
On the ground near his body was a litter of empty crushed and blackened beer cans.
"He fell asleep on the sofa and woke up a little too late," Whitten said.
Neighbors' shouts and rescue attempts came to nothing. Dan Osborne in the mobile home next door saw smoke pouring from Jameson's home about 8:45 a.m. and hollered an alarm.
"I said, "Bill, are you all right?' A few seconds later I heard him say, "g-- d---,' Osborne said. "He was frail with his hip replacement."
The clutter in Jameson's trailer probably hindered his escape, park manager Carl Schalow said. Schalow helped Jameson buy the metal-skinned home for $2,400 two years ago.
The garbage and discarded beer cans so covered the floor, Jameson could barely get across, neighbors said. A routine sight was three ashtrays piled high with cigarette butts, some smoldering, Schalow said.
Several times a week, Jameson took taxis from his mobile home park off Tucker Road to the grocery or liquor store. Four cardboard Busch beer 12-packs were scattered beside his home.
"If I'd have been here, I would have jerked him out," Schalow said as firefighters milled around the trailer.
Another neighbor tried a rescue but was driven back by flames that climbed double the height of the trailer. Ray Prell, 85, said he gave up when he noticed Jameson was dead. He focused instead on beating back the flames from the propane tank on the front of the trailer.
"When I arrived, he was reaching out in the doorway, like he wanted me to take his hand," Prell said. "It was problematic if he was still alive."
It was the second mobile home fire in two days in Pasco County and the eighth fatal fire in the county this year. On Sunday, Jean and Harvey Schwieger, a retired couple recently arrived from New York, were critically burned in Orchid Lake Travel Park.
Leaking propane had filled their New Port Richey home and exploded when the Schwiegers tried to light the stove. Homes on each side of the Schwiegers' were wrecked, too.
Jameson's fire caused no further damage to Peaceful Acres, a neighborhood of mostly retirees just beyond Zephyrhills' city limits.
Flames blackened his neighbors' wooden privacy fence, but the park manager stripped away an awning when it looked like the fire would spread to it.