He saved her from a burning house. 34 years later, she got to say thank you
CBC
Deannea Smith hadn't seen Ed Harnum in 34 years. It turns out she never forgot his eyes.
When Smith saw Harnum earlier this month, she locked on his eyes — and knew instantly they were the eyes she saw through the respirator and mask he wore the night he saved her life.
In July 1989, Harnum carried Smith, then only 12, out of her best friend's house in the central Newfoundland town of Bishop's Falls.
"I was a bit nervous at first, but I gave him a hug — like I did right when he picked me up in the fire," she said.
"I'd never let that man go, if I could. I owe my life to this man."
At a ceremony to honour Harnum's 50 years in the volunteer fire service, the pair were reunited for the first time since the most traumatic night of Smith's life.
Smith moved from Bishop's Falls a couple of years later, when she was 15. She now lives in St. John's.
But when she got a phone call from Harnum's son, Steve, asking if she wanted to come to the ceremony, she jumped at the chance.
They came up with a perfect plan to surprise his father with a visit from the girl he saved from that burning house.
Steve Harnum said it was all a plan "to make a grown man cry."
On July 7, 1989, Smith was having a sleepover at her best friend Martha's house. They were so close that she called Martha's parents "mom" and "dad."
In the the early hours of the morning, the Morgan family home caught on fire.
Smith woke to the sound of crackling wood, and when she looked around, she recalled, the floor was glowing red.
"We got to get out… the house is on fire!" she remembers yelling to Martha.
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