MIKE MORRIS and JOHN SPINK
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A mentally disabled man was killed and his parents injured in a fire early Thursday near Decatur. A fourth person in the home escaped uninjured.

The fire broke out at a house on Juanita Street near Second Avenue.

The uninjured man, Gregory Tolbert, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was asleep in the home with his brother, Kevin Tolbert, and his mother and stepfather, Ruby and Arthur Irvin, when the fire broke out about 5 a.m.

"I just woke up and seen the fire and tried to get everybody up out of there," said Tolbert, 50. "I heard crackling and popping sounds, and when I opened the door from the den, I saw the fire in the kitchen area and the car garage. The whole front area was in flames."

Tolbert said he "woke my brother up and he actually got up and went toward the front, and I was trying to get my mother out and by the time we got out, we realized he hadn't made it out."

Firefighters later found his 48-year-old brother's body in a back bedroom of the one-story brick house.

Tolbert and the Irvins escaped the flames by jumping out a front window about 8 feet off the ground.

"Arthur hurt his back trying to catch my mother," Tolbert said. "She bruised and scraped herself trying to come out the window also."

Acting DeKalb County fire Chief Edward O'Brien said the initial call was for a car on fire in the carport of the home, but the flames had spread throughout the structure by the time fire crews arrived.

The fire also damaged homes on both sides of the house where the blaze began, O'Brien said.

Neighbor Michael Davis said he woke up about 5 a.m. to see his neighbors' carport ablaze.

"The house went fast --- really, really fast," Davis said. "By the time the Fire Department got here, 90 percent of the house was engulfed in flames."

Davis said the Irvins were "very distraught and disoriented" after jumping out of the windows.

Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 14, 2010