George Schimpf had already graduated summa cum laude from the school of hard knocks when fire consumed his family’s home on Christmas Eve.
Stricken with scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation in the skin and other areas of the body, Schimpf received a heart transplant in 2019 at the age of 38.
When he talks about it, he still sounds surprised he survived.
“My doctors told me I was going to die,” he recalls. “I did die. My wife held my 6-month-old son over my hospital bed, and I said goodbye to him. When people tell me I’m brave, I tell them my wife is the strong one.”
Schimpf says he survived by the grace of God.
“I nearly died several times. I can’t count how many times I rode an ambulance to the hospital. I actually watched myself flatline on the monitor once.”
Schimpf was not only able to spend more time with his son, Solly, who’s now 4, but he and his wife, Elizabeth Solomon-Schimpf, had a second child, Wiles, who’s all of seven months old.
The added years and bonus son are blessings, Schimpf says, especially in light of news from his doctors that complications with his transplant will require him to have a second one.
This news didn’t surprise him, he says. Rather, he felt like a boxer who ignores his wounds and steps into the ring when the bell announces the start of the next round.
“My doctors say I’ll be stronger the second time through, so my recovery should go better. But I know there are risks, so I’m trying to be positive and enjoy every moment I have with my wife and kids.”
Schimpf, who owns and manages rental properties, has been spending many of these prized slices of life in the Signal Mountain home he shares with his wife and children.
Like many homes, it’s where he and his family have been making memories since he and Elizabeth became parents. But it’s also where his grandparents, Eugene and Virginia Ann Dixson Schimpf, made memories before them.
“My grandparents build the home in 1954,” Schimpf notes. “I believe it was one of the first houses on Arrow Drive. It was my favorite place to be when I was growing up. I loved the big family gatherings on holidays.”
Schimpf purchased the house from an uncle in 2020 and moved in with his family.
“I felt fortunate to be able to buy it and raise my children there. Whenever I’d give my first son a bath, I’d tell him his grandfather once took baths in the same tub – and so had I.”
The memory of bathing in the same tub existed only in Schimpf’s mind. Other memories tied to the house were preserved in photographs, including grainy pictures of the birthday party his family hosted when he turned 4. Still others were etched into the home’s door frames, such as a pencil line Schimpf’s grandmother had drawn to record the height of his father in 1965.
Now that etching has joined Schimpf’s memories of childhood baths in existing only in his mind.
Schimpf and his family were driving to a Christmas Eve party when a neighbor called his wife and told her their house was on fire. Moments later, another neighbor called Schimpf to tell him his car was engulfed in flames.
Schimpf says the car was parked under a deck. Upon receiving the second call, he assumed the deck was a loss but felt certain the Signal Mountain Fire Department would be able to save the house. So, he dropped his family off at the party and then returned home, expecting to see only a partially scorched exterior.
But as Schimpf reached the hill that leads up to his house, he saw a battalion of firetrucks engulfed in gray billows.
“The smoke was so thick, I couldn’t get out of my car,” he remembers. “When I finally did, I received a text from my wife that read, ‘Do you think we’ll be able to spend the night there?’ And I looked up and saw a huge ball of fire in our living room.”
As Schimpf tries to describe his emotions in that moment, all he can do is say he was overwhelmed.
“I started crying. Our neighbors came up and hugged me.”
As firefighters fought to extinguish the flames, one of them asked Schimpf if there was anything in the house he needed. The question snapped him out of his trauma and he remembered his heart medication.
“I have a collection of pills I have to take every day or my body will reject my heart,” Schimpf says. “I had enough in the house to last a couple of months, and it was scary to think I might lose those.”
To Schimpf’s amazement, firefighters ventured into the flames to retrieve his medication. While the intense heat inside the house had melted some of the pills, enough were intact to last until the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute in Nashville was able to replace them.
“The fire was still burning,” Schimpf marvels. “Someone could have been hurt saving my medication.”
But no one was hurt. Instead, the only casualties that day were material and emotional in nature.
“We literally had what we were wearing,” Schimpf says. “If the fire hadn’t burned it, the smoke had damaged it beyond use.”
In response, Schimpf’s sister, Jenny Ann Goins, reached out to the community for temporary provision. In addition to launching a GoFundMe page, she issued a clarion call for supplies and raised the door of her two-car garage to accommodate the anticipated flood of support.
The people of Signal Mountain did not disappoint. Money, toiletries, diapers and more poured in. Noting it was Christmas Day and the Schimpfs had likely lost the presents they’d purchased for their children, townspeople also dropped off enough presents to fill a certain red sleigh, Schimpf smiles.
“My son was floored. After we left my sister’s house, he said, ‘Dada, that was fun.’ He was actually happy.”
Schimpf, however, was in pain – literally. After being awake through the night of the fire, his heart was aching. He felt less discomfort the second night due to the outpouring of care from the community, he says, and by the third night, he and his wife were able to sleep.
“The whole experience has been overwhelming,” he says, repeating the word he’d used earlier to describe his emotions when he saw flames reducing his family home to ashes. “[The Bible says] the Lord will never put more than you can handle in front of you. When this happened, I thought it was more than we could handle. But thanks to everyone’s generosity, we’re going to make it through this.”
The ordeal is far from over. As of Jan. 3, the Signal Mountain Fire Department was still investigating the cause of the fire. But Schimpf and his family do have a roof over their heads – they’re staying at his in-laws – and they’re searching for a place to rent.
Schimpf has also become a vocal advocate of fire safety. “I tell everyone who will listen to check the batteries in their smoke detectors. We were fortunate we weren’t home when the fire started.”
As Schimpf and his family prepare to move forward, he says they don’t have any of their possessions, but they do have each other, the things they need and a tremendous amount of gratitude.
“I’ve loved that house since I was a kid and living there felt special. I remember wrestling with my uncles there and then wrestling with my son. It’s a piece of history we’ll never get back but we do have our memories.”