Sanitation worker to be recognized for saving children from storm-damaged home

City officials will recognize a Charlotte sanitation worker who jumped in to help a family after a tree fell on their home during Tropical Storm Debby.

Neighbors said they saw city worker Jamie Gray leave his garbage truck at the end of the street on Aug. 8 and rescue two kids from the home in northwest Charlotte.

“I looked inside, just glanced and I saw that all the lights went off, and saw the ceiling that split in half, and that’s mostly all I could see,” Gray said.

He remembered seeing slick roads and swaying trees throughout his waste pickup shift.

Screams were coming from inside the home on Bramble Place. Then he saw two kids.

“I went under the tree and picked them up and helped them get out,” Gray said. “And then I picked up the boy. The boy was just shaking, uncontrollably. I picked him up and took him through the car, put him in and came back for the girl. Picked the girl up, and she was more worried about her dad.”

Gray said he hopes a stranger would do the same for his family.

“I have a three-year-old,” said Gray, a senior sanitation operator with the city. “Hearing that little kid scream for help, just thinking that was my family. I would want somebody to jump in and do that if I wasn’t there to help.”

Neighbors said Gray’s good deeds didn’t stop there.

Someone took a picture of the sanitation worker walking along the blocked road, stopping by each driveway, and picking up trash cans by hand.

Gray believes it’s all part of the job.

“This makes me feel good, making sure they’re all right,” Gray said. “It could have been a lot worse, but it wasn’t.”

Gray said he reunited with the family after the storm and learned they are all OK.

The Charlotte City Council is expected to recognize Gray at its meeting on Oct. 26.

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