'We lost everything': Wife, son tried to save father from deadly Lancaster Co. fire

LANCASTER COUNTY, S.C. — Lancaster County fire officials said one person was killed in a house fire early Sunday morning in Indian Land.

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Officials said three people were inside a mobile home on Camp Cox Circle when it caught fire -- a father, mother, and a high school senior.

Family members said the fire started overnight Saturday into Sunday when the son Shawn Miller woke up and smelled smoke.

They said Shawn went to wake up his parents and was able to escape with his mother Karen Simpson, thinking his father was behind him.

Officials said the father 51-year-old Harold Miller died in the fire.

"I'm honestly lucky I even woke up from that," Shawn Miller said. "Fire came in through the bedroom and the whole house was starting to burn and we couldn't do anything to save my dad."

Simpson was injured getting out of the house.

The woman said she is grateful for her neighbors who smashed the windows of her house trying to get her husband out, filled buckets of water, and ran over with a hose doing everything they could.

"I didn't want to get too close," neighbor Jesus Zarate said. "And I just saw the flames and they were pretty high."

Authorities said three different fire departments responded to the fire early Sunday morning.

Investigators told Channel 9 the preliminary cause of the fire was a space heater, but the fire is still under investigation. Firefighters said the house burned quickly.

Simpson called her son a hero for saving her.

"He could've just gone out the door, but he tried to make sure that we got out too," Simpson said.

Family members told reporter Greg Suskin the house did not have any working smoke detectors.

"If you don't have working smoke detectors in your home, get 'em. Because we didn't, and we lost everything."

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