An admitted gang banger turned pastor finally met a young woman whose life he saved in a fire 18-years ago in Baltimore. Reverend Ted Sutton is reminded of the fatal fire every time he hears children at his church, The Maryland Church of God in Christ, in north Baltimore.
In 1996 a deadly fire in downtown Baltimore killed five-people, four of them were children. Sutton was an admitted Baltimore gangbanger at the time until he ran into the burning building to rescue children that day. “It’s just, just a house that was smoldering,” remembers Sutton, “the house was engulfed in fire at all levels.” He said he decided to help when he saw the gruesome sight.
“Some of the people who were falling were falling face-first, or head-first to the point where their whole bodies were engulfed in blood.”
But he was able to save lives, including five-year-old Jacqueline Miller, though her mother died in the fire.
Sutton made a decision to put his gang life behind him after that incident.
Jackie, who now is a soon-to-be Towson University graduate, always hoped to meet the man who saved her life. The feeling is mutual. “She had no idea, she helped a thug find his way,” credits Sutton. “I don’t know how to feel, because I feel like he saved my life, and I don’t know how to react to him saying I saved his life,” Jackie says.
Jackie and Ted connected after all these years through Facebook.
