Jane had scarcely finished speaking when a dozen little children rushed into their Grand Bank house—their little faces white with terror—shouting and saying at the same time, “George’s burned to death!” “He’s all on fire!” Thirteen-year-old George Eberly didn’t die — but he came close. When I interviewed him in 1962, George explained to me exactly what happened that night of the fire, 61 years ago. After dinner, Emberley and some of his brothers went up to the commons, a large grassy open ground by the beach, about 180 yards from the Emberly house. As November 5 that year was a Sunday, Bonfire Night was celebrated a day earlier.
He hovers between life and death
“My older brother, Carlson, was going to light it for us, but we decided to put it forward. gas,” he said. “I started the fire and then went to hit the gas to get it going — it blew back and I didn’t know anything before I was on fire.” Emberly began to run, and two men tending another fire nearby caught him and wrapped their jackets around him, putting out the flames. “Then dad came and rushed me to the hospital,” Emberley said. George Eberly today. (Alan Staudley) For 10 days – including his birthday on November 7 – he hovered between life and death at Grand Bank Cottage Hospital. Six days after the accident, George’s seventeen-year-old sister Joyce was working at Buffett’s Store. “I was at the bottom of the stairs in the upstairs store when Mr. Curtis Forsey came in. He asked me how the family was and he was looking at me a little weird,” she said. “I told him we were fine and that George was getting very good care at the hospital. He was so surprised at my answer because he had heard ‘in the Grand Bank News’ that George had died — go upstairs and buy a sympathy card.” . Four days later, George was airlifted to the old St. John’s General Hospital. Joyce went with him. “Due to the fact that mum was very pregnant at the time, I went with George on the helicopter ride to St John,” she said. Twenty-two days after the accident, their brother Bill was born. “I remember mum and dad going to St John to see George and they came home telling us not to expect to see him again.” The Emberley family. From left: son Stephen, wife Judy, daughter Joanne and George Emberley. (Submitted by the Emberley Family) For four long months he was isolated in a room at the General’s – under the watchful eye of Dr. Angus Neary – where he underwent surgery after surgery, peeling flesh from the upper half of his body to graft it to the lower, from His waist below. To get enough flesh, he had to remove it from his chest and back twice in those four months. “I know what it’s like to go to hell on earth,” George told me recently. “I would beg and beg the hospital staff to give me needles for the pain.” On March 11, 1962 he was released from the hospital and returned to his home in Grand Bank. For the first few weeks he could only walk a few steps, but gradually the determined lad began to regain his strength — after several months he could be seen running. I became more determined than ever to push myself until I could walk.- George Eberly He still couldn’t play soccer or hockey, but as his mother told me at the time, it was a miracle he could even walk. Neary had told her that the ligaments in one of his ankles were badly burned and it looked like he would be crippled. George told me that hearing that he would never walk again only made him more ready to do just that. “I became more determined than ever to push myself until I could walk,” he said. George, the son of Randolph and Ellie Emberley, had six brothers and seven sisters. A brother, Carlson, is deceased. In 1970 George married a Grand Bank girl, Judy Evans, and they have two children, Steven and Joan. A motor mechanic by trade, he spent most of his working years working in the family business started by his father: Emberley’s Transport Limited. Now living in Mount Pearl, he retired 10 years ago but is still on call when the company needs his services. Judy, a hairdresser, still operates her own beauty salon. When their son, Steven, was 18 months old, the family moved to Toronto for four years so he could attend a school for the deaf. They returned to Grand Bank and lived there for several more years, then moved permanently to the St. John area. “Forty years after the accident, we took Dr. Neary to dinner,” George told me at the end of my most recent interview. “After dinner he came back to our house to meet the family.” Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
