Married Couple Rescued from Whitehall House Fire

UPDATE at 7:44 p.m. on Saturday, March 26: Brian Spegar reacts to the fire: "I was just happy I was able to get them out of the house ... I'm not looking for any notoriety.

"I really don't know them that well."

Spegar was told that the victims said that they were sure glad that he was there.

"So was I," Spegar said. "Believe me."

Spegar declined to elaborate on further details of the fire.

John, 62, and Mary Lou Grasser, 59, awoke to a fire in their home at 5328 Highgrove Road in this morning perhaps only because a neighbor, Brian Spegar of nearby 5333 Glen Robin Drive, saw flames coming from the Grassers’ roof and pounded on their home’s front door until the married couple came downstairs.

Neither of the Grassers knew that their house was on fire even as Spegar was knocking heavily on their front door at around 7 a.m.

“We were sleeping,” Mary Lou said, “and I heard this noise. I heard this pop, pop, pop and something fall, and I’m screaming, ‘Johnny! Johnny!’

“He didn’t answer, so next thing you know, somebody was pounding at the door, and it was the neighbor behind us (Spegar).

“We answered, and he said, ‘Your house is on fire.’

“Didn’t even know. I couldn’t even smell it.”

“He saved their lives,” said Fred Glasser, the couple’s son, who arrived at the scene later that morning.

Spegar and another neighbor, Scott Robinson of 5319 Highgrove, then helped Mary Lou to safety while John went to the garage to find a fire extinguisher.

Spegar, whom the Grassers and Robinson are calling a “hero,” encouraged John to get out of the house.

Spegar said that, contrary to a prior report, he is not a former firefighter.

“I know that it wasn’t right to go back in there,” John said, “but you’re not thinking right, you know?”

John said that the arrived shortly after everyone was out of the house and began fighting the fire, which is believed to have originated in the home’s attic.

Both John and Mary Lou said that the Allegheny County Fire Marshal’s Investigation Unit, which was still on the scene as of 1 p.m. that day, informed the couple that the cause of the fire, unofficially, might have been the home’s attic fan.

John said that the attic fan was off when the couple went to sleep. “I only turn that on in the summertime,” he said.

Mary Lou said that the couple has lived in their Highgrove home for 39 years and that they raised both of their children there.

“I want to stay here,” she said while fighting back tears. “I hope that I can redo it, and I want to stay here.

“I love it here. The neighbors were so kind to me.”

John and Mary Lou were taken by ambulance to Jefferson Regional Medical Center but arrived back at 5328 Highgrove at around 11:45 a.m. showing no symptoms and walking around on their own.

Mary Lou said that John might have gone into a state of shock, though.

“(During the fire), my husband went into a state where he couldn’t move his arms,” she said. “I was afraid he was having a heart attack, but he’s okay. I think it was just a shock to him.”

“I thought that maybe I was having a heart attack,” John said. “I did inhale a little bit of smoke, but I just went limp. I couldn’t move my arms.”

Should more news develop from this story, this article will receive updates. Check back at baldwin-whitehall.patch.com.