NC Rep. Dean Arp saves a woman from her burning home (02-06-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content, like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] I want to welcome to the program State Representative Dean Arp. He is a representative from Union County. He's also chair of the House Appropriations Committee. And so welcome, sir. How are you doing? I'm great, Pete. How are you doing? I'm doing great as well. So I didn't actually bring you in to talk about appropriations. I did see this story that ran at WRAL. And so you were involved in some extra legislative

[00:00:59] incidents, I guess, incidents, I guess, on Monday night. So tell us, you were driving with your wife, Ann. And so where were you on Monday evening and what happened on that trip? Yeah, we, my wife and I were coming up to Raleigh for our meetings to begin the week up here in session. And we were coming through Rockingham, right, right past the speedway there on number one.

[00:01:26] And I happened to look over and I saw this smoke coming up. And I, you know, it just caught my eye. And I thought, well, that's odd. Somebody's burning leaves. And then as we kept on driving, I saw that it was actually coming out of this mobile home there. And, you know, I kept on going. I was running late to a meeting, actually.

[00:01:51] And I thought to myself, well, that looked odd. There was nobody around, you know, outside. And it just struck me as a little odd. And it just kept bothering me. I thought, I need to turn back. So I told Ann, I said, I think that house is on fire. And so I went on down. There was no break in the meeting. So I was about a quarter mile down the road. And this was bugging me.

[00:02:16] So I turned around and came back. And then that's when we realized that the smoke was actually coming from that home there. My wife jumped out to find, she was on the phone with the fire department trying to call them. But we didn't know what the street address was. So she ran up to the road to where the mailboxes were trying to find that. And I was trying to punch it on my GPS to find out what our street address. And I looked up and I saw the door swing open.

[00:02:45] And I saw this lady look out. And then the door closed back on her. And that's what struck me as just incredible was that there was somebody in there. And I said, oh, my goodness. And so I jumped out and, of course, ran up to the door there and opened up the door. And this just heat and smoke just rolled out. But Miss Esther was in there.

[00:03:15] And I later learned that she had taken the fire, the place was on fire. And she had taken a towel and some blankets was trying to put the fire out. But she was in a wheelchair and her wheelchair got entangled with the blanket. And so she couldn't roll out. And all she had done was push open the screen door and it come back and she couldn't come forward. So I ran in right there and saw her and said, we got to get out of here.

[00:03:43] She was hollering for help. And I was asking her if there was anybody else in here. And she said no. But I was able to pull her out and just get her out of there. And just minutes later, the whole place was engulfed in flame. So did your wife see the smoke, too? She did. When we turned around and came back, she didn't at first. And when I came back, she saw the smoke. And there's adjacent houses. There's two houses right beside there.

[00:04:13] Run into those houses to knock on the door to find out if somebody was in there. And so she didn't see Miss Esther in there. But she she in fact, she saw me going up to go into the house and she was yelling at me. Don't go in there. Don't go in there. And of course, she didn't see Miss Esther, but she was banging on the door to get the neighbors to come. And they're family members who live adjacent to her.

[00:04:38] And they they were just so crying and so upset because they didn't they didn't know what was going on. They couldn't hear her crying for help or anything like that. But God was just there in such a real way, you know, and just brought our paths across right at the right time. And just so thankful that, you know, we had a great, you know, she she's living. She's alive on that. Yeah.

[00:05:07] Yeah. Miss Esther, the resident of the of the home, she's 77 years old, battling cancer. And from what I understand in the WRL report was that the home was totally lost. Yes. Are you aware of any kind of, I don't know, assistance or like a GoFundMe or something? Or have you heard anything like that? Yes, we I've been in contact with a family, obviously checking up on her. They're they're calling me, giving me updates. She's doing well.

[00:05:34] She they took her to the hospital, obviously, for smoke inhalation. Her her her entire tongue and her back of her throat was just black with this soot. Her hair was singed, but but she is in recovery and everything. And we're working with her family to set up a GoFundMe page. So I just know so many people have reached out to me and want to help her.

[00:06:01] And she she lost everything in there, her medical bills and everything. She's she's still in and in the rehab in the hospital. Well, yeah, when you get when you get any information like that, I'm happy to pass it along for folks to help out as well. And so thank you for that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I'm I'm curious, like when you you driving down the road, you see the smoke. And I've been in a similar situation. It was a vehicle parked in a in a parking lot.

[00:06:30] And it's like it didn't register with me at first. Like I'm looking at this thing and I'm like, I think that car is about to catch on fire. And exactly right. Right. So there's like a normalcy bias like that that you got to kind of get past it first. So like how long did you did you experience that? And like how long did it take for you to kind of like, no, I did see what I just saw. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:06:55] And that and that is because your mind is trying to make sense of something that's that's very odd. In fact, when we pulled up, I thought, well, that's odd that they're trying to burn this trailer and nobody's out here watching it. You know, like that I was like trying to make sense of what was going on.

[00:07:15] But, you know, for me, it's it's the God's small voice that just, you know, just tells you something's not right here and to turn around. And, you know, I think most of all, I think, you know, what I want people to understand is God's real and present with us in every single day at every moment. And he's you know, our scripture tells us he's a refuge and a strength and a very present help in trouble.

[00:07:45] And he was there that day just to see. I mean, let me see the smoke. I didn't register that it was so much of a, you know, danger or whatever, but it was enough to just say, you know, go back and take a look at that further. For sure. Right. And people have to be open to hear to hear the message and then to respond. I'm curious, though, when you ran up there, did it ever cross your mind?

[00:08:13] Like, I mean, you see, oh, my gosh, like there's this smoke and there's a person in there and I got to get help get her out. But did it ever cross your mind that that you that you could die? Well, I, you know, it it it didn't cross my mind about my own life or whatever.

[00:08:31] I think what struck me is when I opened up the door and she was back in there and I went into the to the trailer there. She was pretty close to the door right there. And I didn't have to go back in far. But what struck me was the tremendous amount of heat that was there. And I couldn't believe that she was in that heat. Pete, I like it.

[00:08:59] I've got this fire outdoor fire pit. And it's like you put in your head over the top of that heat as it just comes out the top. And that's that's the intensity. And she was sitting in there in that heat. And that's what struck me is there.

[00:09:18] And if she was any further back, the smoke, because it was I was breathing that toxic, like plastic smoke, you know, I just couldn't believe she was actually in there. And then just the heat from the fire that was inside was just incredible. It's after that that you sit down and you reflect on what did I just go through, you know?

[00:09:46] So and this God, God, God was there and protected us both for sure. State Representative Dean Arp, he is from Union County. And well, I mean, you didn't save me, but thank you. And I think you did a wonderful thing. And I know that you're you're not interested in kind of promoting yourself in this.

[00:10:09] But I feel like it's a it's a good way to to let people know that God puts people in the right place at the right time. And if I can help spread that message, then I'm happy to do so. Absolutely. Absolutely. So. All right. Representative Arp, thanks so much for your time and thank you for what you did. We appreciate you. Thank you, Pete. All right. Yes, sir. Take care. All right. I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house, your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room.

[00:10:38] You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing. And then somebody says, hey, dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are on dad who says, oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to. But I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right. Create a video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997.

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[00:11:35] I didn't want to say this to him, but like that's the behavior of a person who behaves courageously and heroically. I didn't want to embarrass him, but it is. Like that's what everybody would hope that they would do in similar circumstances. And so he should be recognized for it, even though he doesn't want to be.

[00:12:03] You know, he wants the message of this incident to be about, you know, doing good and listening to God and following God's path. And I agree. But I also want to give him recognition for what he did, because not everybody would do that. Some people would just keep driving down the road. You're late for your meeting. You just keep driving down the road.

[00:12:29] And you can say, well, you know, that wasn't what I thought it was. That's why he asked about the normalcy bias, because it is a real thing. And it's why people don't respond to extraordinary things, to unusual stimuli, because your brain doesn't know what it's looking at. And it's just easier to say, oh, you know, there's oh, it's here you go.

[00:12:58] It's the same reason why whenever you hear about, you know, horrific mass shootings or something like that. People always say they thought it was fireworks or something. Right. Net people don't ever think in those types of ways because it's so outside of the ordinary. Outside of the normal. And so we have this bias. You don't recognize what it is that you're seeing when you're seeing it.

[00:13:28] And and then it's easy to just kind of dismiss something away. It's why, you know, people hear somebody calling for help and or screaming. And they're just like, you know, oh, I'm sure there's a rational explanation for it. I'm sure there's a normal reason for that. And there isn't. It is actually somebody calling for help. And and a lot of people ignore it because of the normalcy bias.

[00:13:54] It's if they even think past it to to start weighing like, should I turn around? Should I turn the car around and go back there? And then it's like, well, but then I would be driving onto their property. And what if everything is fine? And, you know, I go up to the door and they treat me like I'm crazy. Like you can find reasons to not to not turn the car around and to not go up to the door. Right. But when you get there and you realize this house is on fire and.

[00:14:22] Then you see somebody inside and this woman was in a wheelchair and could not get out. And according to the report at WRAL, her wheelchair was so hot to the touch, like the metal parts of the wheelchair. That he said it was like touching a frying pan. And she would have died, you know, but for him listening to that voice.

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[00:15:47] Choose from 13 cabins, 6 cottages, 2 villas, and a great lodge with 11 king-sized bedrooms. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you for any occasion. And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Let me go to the phones here. Let's talk with Tim. Welcome to the program, Tim.

[00:16:17] Hey, Pete. Thanks for taking my call. I really enjoy your show. Those type of rescues where the gentleman helped rescue that lady from that house fire, those incidents are more common than you'd think, Pete, where your average citizen puts himself in a position to become what some people would call a hero. Matter of fact, I've been in the same situation. I was on the way up to the North Carolina mountains. I was from Charlotte at the time.

[00:16:46] So me and my buddy was taking a road trip up to the mountains, and we drove past this, like, mill house somewhere up near Newton or Conover. And we seen smoke billowing out from under the eaves of the house all the way around the house. Oh. So I told him, I said, man, pull over. This house is on fire. So we run up on the front porch and started knocking on the front door, and we couldn't get anybody to the door. And I said, keep knocking. I'm going around back. And I run around back, and I started knocking on the door. Nobody was coming to the door.

[00:17:15] And I thought, man, I'm going to have to go in here, you know. So I smashed. This was back when houses had screen doors. I snatched on the door and snatched that screen door open. And then about that time, this man come to the door. I said, man, the house is on fire. You know, what's going on? You got smoke coming around the edge of your attic. He said, oh, ain't no problem. We just got a pot of beans on the stove. Good Lord. So did you owe him for the door? No. No. Okay.

[00:17:44] That's exactly what I was thinking, Pete. I said, well, I'm going to get out of here before he notices I broke his screen doors. But I guess his stone pipe in the attic didn't go through the roof good. Improper venting. Yeah, like that's a normal thing. Wow. All right, Tim, I appreciate the call, man. Funny story. Yeah, there was a friend of mine, and I didn't know this story until after he had passed away. I knew him. He was a high school buddy of mine, and Jimmy Vega was his name.

[00:18:15] And he had gone to the—it wasn't the Coast Guard. It was the Maritime—I'm trying to remember the name of the college, because he had gone there for one year. And then that summer after his first year, he died in an accident. And—but the—one of the stories that they told that nobody knew, because he never told anybody.

[00:18:41] But his girlfriend told the story that he had jumped into a lake. They were driving someplace, and he saw a car go off the road, and it went into a little lake, a little body of water. And he pulled over, and he ran out into the water, swam out there, and rescued this mom and her kid or something.

[00:19:08] And then got back in his car and went and continued on. Like—and never told anybody. So, yeah, I agree with Tim's point. It happens a lot more often than we are aware, I am sure. Patty, welcome to the show. Hey, Patty. Hey there. I just wanted to let you know that, as Dean Arp would say, you get a little message in your head sometimes that you just need to pay attention to it. Mm-hmm.

[00:19:35] Dean Arp is the kind of person that we need in Washington rather than in Raleigh. He is a good, strong, hard-working, deep-thinking man that cares about people. It would seem—yeah, it would seem so. Although, if you listen to Dan Bishop, one of the things that frustrated him was how difficult it was to actually get anything done up in Washington.

[00:20:04] Whereas, you know, we do need good, competent people to volunteer their time and expertise at the local and the state levels, too. In Raleigh. Yeah. Well, he does a great job for Union County. And I've tried for years to convince him to go to Washington. But he doesn't listen, so now I'll put it out there for the whole world of here. So this is—so is this like a—this is a public pressure campaign to draft him? There you go.

[00:20:34] There you go. I'm advertising myself for his campaign manager. Okay. Patty, I— All right. I appreciate the call. You guys have a good day. You too, ma'am. All right. Thanks. Yep. Take care. Take care. Like, I am—I am not aware of the draft dean for D.C. campaign. But, yeah, like I said, there—I saw something the other day, actually.

[00:21:00] Do you know, if you were to count up all of, like, the people who are in offices that are representing other people, like all representatives, what would you think would be, like, at what level do you think there would be the most amount of people in sort of, you know, elected representative offices?

[00:21:27] It's obviously not, you know, the U.S. Senate or the House up in Washington. It's not at the state level either. You tally up all the state lawmakers, it's not there either. It's not you thinking, okay, maybe county or school boards or cities and towns. No, it's not that either. You know what it is? HOAs.

[00:21:51] There are more people in HOAs, and they are actually elected and representing people. And I saw that last week. I was like, that's amazing. But if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. It's, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, maybe, of people that do that stuff. And usually for no pay. So, anyway, just throwing that out there. All right.

[00:22:19] If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news.pete.

[00:22:47] I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The Blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news.pete. Subscribe through that link, and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:23:17] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. I mentioned this the other day, but the Alzheimer's Association, Western Carolina chapter, congratulations. Congratulations. Charlotte came in number 24 in America for the amount of money that was raised as part of the 2024 walk-to-end Alzheimer's.

[00:23:45] The Alzheimer's Association puts out the top 30 list of the markets and the chapters that generate the most money through these fundraising efforts, and Charlotte has been in the top ranking since 2016 and is the largest fundraiser for Alzheimer's and other dementia awareness care, support, and research.

[00:24:14] Nearly 2,000 participants in last year's walk. And thank you to everybody that came out and walked with me. I appreciate that. And everybody that donated to my team, thank you very much. If you donated to the Alzheimer's Association, thank you. The Charlotte region raised $745,000 through that walk last year.

[00:24:41] And preparations are already underway for the 2025 walk, which is going to be in October, and I'll give you more details on all of that. Several local teams, I should give a shout-out here for the work that they did as well. There were several teams and individuals that earned national rankings in the top 50 walk teams nationwide. Senior living communities, they came in at number 44. They pulled in almost $68,000.

[00:25:13] In the top 100 were Charlotte participants Josh Thompson, Stuart Goldstein, and Wesley Misson. And the last two there were part of Team Cadwallader. Yeah, they were both on the same team. Josh Thompson was on Senior Living Communities team. And so if you want information on joining the walk, it's a lot of fun, some good exercise too. And it's a great cause.

[00:25:41] All of the money goes to fund research, 24-care support for family members and people who are living with Alzheimer's. They do advocacy work. They also fuel a bunch of research, and there's been a lot of progress in that area over the last year with FDA approval of a new drug to help slow down the pace.

[00:26:08] Nationwide, there were like 371,000 people that participated in the walks. So it's a great event. It's a great charity. I was a supporter of theirs just personally for years, probably now close to 20 years. My grandfather had Alzheimer's. And so it's a cause that has always been personal to me. So I was always supporting them. And then when I came back to WBT, they were looking, you know, because there was an affiliation there.

[00:26:38] They had been doing some work with my colleague at our sister station, Ramona Holloway. And so she asked, hey, would you be interested in helping? I said, absolutely. And so I've been helping with this ever since I got back. And it's a really good cause. They do really great work for especially the family members, the caregivers, you know, that are on the front lines.

[00:27:00] And it is a very difficult thing for the family members to take care of their loved ones who are getting progressively worse, you know? So thanks again and congratulations to everybody that helped with that effort.

[00:27:20] In the next hour here, I'm going to get into this big event that was held up at the White House yesterday where President Trump signed an executive order regarding transgender students or men playing on women's sports.

[00:27:41] And what has been pretty amazing to watch is that the left does not have a response to what we saw yesterday. And if you haven't seen the images and the video that came out of that event, it is powerful.

[00:28:01] And it's probably a little bit scary to a political organization that is on the wrong side of that issue and can't break free of it. So we'll get to that. There is a related story, and I'm probably not going to have time to finish it here before the top of the hour newscast. So I'll fold it into the next hour.

[00:28:26] I'll start here in the next hour, which is that there is a bill that has been filed in the North Carolina legislature that would allow students who are attending home schools or private schools to play sports or other extracurricular activities at their local public school. And this has gotten the left outraged.

[00:28:56] And I read a tweet the other day from some idiot on Twitter, and there are a lot of them. And so it's a target rich environment for me, which is he was saying that this is some sort of DEI like, oh, good to see Republicans are for DEI now, which is just completely. Completely. Dumb, it's just dumb. And. You would think that people in the public school system and defenders of the system would be celebrating this.

[00:29:26] I'll explain. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them, too, and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete calendar show dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.