Waukesha County native loses home, belongings to house fire

 

WISCONSIN (CBS 58) -- It's been a week of highs and lows for a Kettle Moraine High School graduate after she lost everything she owns in a house fire.

Chloe Tompkins graduated from Kettle Moraine in 2014 and is presently coaching the basketball team at Northern Michigan University. 

She wants to express her deep appreciation after people she never before met have reached out through social media with words of encouragement, and money, to help ease her loss.

Giant orange flames consumed the two-story wood-framed house in Marquette, Michigan over the weekend. 

Two men, a dog and a cat, were lucky to escape.

"Next thing he knew, he said he heard a giant bang and the whole house was up in flames," said Tompkins.

She was back home in Dousman visiting family when she got a call she says was one of the scariest moments of her life.

"He just kept screaming 'it's so bad, it's so bad,'" said Tompkins. "It was one of the scariest moments of my life to get that call of him screaming and not knowing what's going on and having no ability to help him."

Kendrick Sanders told Chloe he smelled smoke and went to investigate. 

The smoke alarms then went off, so he quickly woke the couple's other roommate and the two got out fast, grabbing their pets on the way.

"So the dog actually ran back into the house to try to get him, so our roommate ran in to get her and Kendrick heard him screaming in the house," said Tompkins.

Tompkins was a stand-out athlete at Kettle Moraine. 

Kendrick is a wrestler, and has a shot at qualifying for the Olympics on April 7. 

All could have been lost as Sanders was backing his vehicle out of their garage during the fire and two propane tanks blew up.

"He backed out just in time that he somehow is alive, and I just -- it makes you realize like that we lost so much, I mean we lost everything...I told him everything I needed to get out of that house got out," said Tompkins.

There are two GoFundMe pages set up to help the couple -- you can find those here, and here.