Rockingham family to return to Gatlinburg after escaping wildfire

A Rockingham woman will head back to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Wednesday where she left her clothes and even her elderly father's wheelchair at a motel so they could escape the flames from recent wildfires.

Tuesday night she shared video she took documenting their frightening experience.

“When you're thinking the fire is miles away, and your turn around and it is a row behind you, that is horrifying,” Aprille Cassidy Thrift said.

The thick smoke in the area set off smoke alarms inside her motel.

“It really scared me because it went off seven to eight times, but the wind was so bad it was blowing the doors open,” Thrift said.

She said motel staff didn't suggest they evacuate until 9 p.m. and when the power went out, Thrift had to help her parents from the second floor using a flashlight and leaving behind their clothes and her father's wheelchair.

“My father still has nightmares... to this night,” Thrift said.

Her family plans to visit Gatlinburg again, keeping their 20-year holiday tradition, but the memory of the fear triggered by the flames will be hard to extinguish.

“I will always go back,” she said. “My heart is broken for them. But it will never be the same.”

Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com:

• Driver charged with DWI in deadly University City wreck, police say
• Police: Man allegedly assaults, robs woman at Gastonia mall
• College student dies in wreck driving home for best friend's funeral
• Boy found with dead chicken around his neck sues former foster mother
• Veteran dies at VA hospital after maggots found in wound

Associated Press