A worker picking up garbage in an Augusta neighborhood saw a kitchen fire. She didn’t call 911. Instead, she runs into the kitchen and picks up the fiery skillet with her bare hands. It happened at about 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning. Rubye Edmonds had breakfast on the stove and it went up in flames, but what happened next might have save her life. “She was a hero, good God give praise and the honor! And for saving me because I can’t get around too good,” Edmonds said. “I could’ve got burnt bad.” It was Sondra Drinks, her garbage woman.
“We never know when we’re going to need someone,” Edmonds said. “You never know. The person you think doesn’t care at all about you is the one that will come to your call when you are in need.”
Drinks and Edmonds were chatting when a fire started in the kitchen. “Then I looked back and I said ‘Woah!’ And she ran in the house and she took the skillet and it was ablaze,” Edmonds said. Like out of a movie, Drinks ran into the burning kitchen, grabbed the skillet with her bare hands, and threw it outside. “Oh Lord, she ran back in the house after she threw the skillet out and she said, ‘I’m burnt! I’m burnt!’ She said, ‘My skin is falling off!’ I said, ‘Oh Lord, have mercy,” Edmonds said.
It was a courageous act, according to Orion Waste Solutions supervisor Robert Lambright. “I’m thankful for a driver like her to be on my team,” Lambright said. “She’s awesome to have that kind of courage to go into a burning home and to also bring the elderly lady out. She’s awesome.”