Couple Saved From Fire Seeks Identity of Mystery Hero
His name is Jack G-something. He’s tall, blond, handsome and may be connected to Hollywood. And Lois Lillibridge is desperate to find him.
The mystery man, wearing clothes that indicated he had just finished working on the Academy Awards ceremony, rescued a sleeping Lillibridge and her husband, Robert, from a fire that was rapidly spreading from their garage to their home in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
He even gave them a bouquet of orchids.
But just as fast as a blaze moves across a shake-shingled roof, the unknown hero was gone. Now the Lillibridges are trying to find him to offer thanks for saving their lives.
“We really owe this man our lives,” Lillibridge said. “He put his life in jeopardy for us.”
Lillibridge, 68, said she and Robert, 72, were “dead asleep” about 1:30 a.m. when she heard someone pounding at the door of her house in the 23300 block of Califa Street. For a few seconds, she dismissed the noise, convinced it was a homeless person looking for a place to stay or some money.
Then someone yelled, “There’s a fire out here.”
Lillibridge spotted someone else’s car in the driveway and realized the car was lighted up by the flames from her house. She called 911 and she and her husband got out.
A man they had never seen before, wearing a dark sweatshirt with the words “70th annual Academy Awards” on it in white script and several security passes around his neck, picked up a garden hose to fight the flames on the garage roof.
“This man is a handsome guy; at least he looked handsome to me last night,” Lillibridge said.
He stayed for about an hour to make sure Lillibridge and her husband were all right, then left, saying he needed to get home to his young daughter. But he returned a short time later with a bouquet of orchids for Lillibridge, saying “Take these, you need these.”
Frazzled by the chain of events, Lillibridge forgot to ask him his name.
He returned again later Tuesday morning and stayed long enough to check up on the Lillibridges. He gave a name that sounded like Jack Geise or Geese, then left.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells.
The garage, a BMW and a spare room in the house were destroyed. The Lillibridges estimated the damage at more than $50,000.
“It’s just stuff, things that one accumulates,” Lillibridge said. “It can all be replaced. Our lives could not.” She said she intends to give the man a financial reward when they find him.
Lillibridge’s sons--Joe, James and John Perez--are searching the Internet for Jack. They’ve tried the telephone books and are now trying to find him in online searches of the labor unions associated with the Oscar awards.
“We’re not having much luck,” Joe Perez said. “The only other thing is to look around the neighborhood. I don’t know how else we can find him.”