A teacher was killed and his wife and two children were hospitalized with serious injuries after a fire broke out at their northwest Georgia home Sunday morning, officials said.
Fire crews got a call just after 7:30 a.m. about smoke inside a house in the 120 block of Ridgewood Circle near Chickamauga, according to Walker County officials.
When firefighters arrived, they found smoke and flames coming from the front of the home, about 10 miles from the Tennessee border.
While Heather Millican and her two children, ages 3 and 8, were outside the home already, officials learned her husband, John Millican, was trapped inside.
After a search and rescue operation, the LaFayette High School teacher and coach was found unconscious in a bedroom near the back of the home. He was taken to the hospital, but died there, officials said.
His wife, a social studies teacher at LaFayette Middle School, and two children were taken to Vanderbilt Burn Center in Nashville for treatment.
In a statement, Walker County Schools said it was “deeply saddened by the tragic events that occurred early this morning.”
“This heartbreaking loss is being felt across our school communities,” the statement read. “We ask everyone to keep the Millican family and all those affected in your thoughts and prayers in the days ahead.”
Millican previously served as a history teacher and coach for Dade County Cross Country and Track and Field, which stated he was “passionate about growing our program.”
“Coach Millican was a history teacher at Dade as well as the sprint coach and starter at our track meets. He was currently working at Lafayette High as a SPED teacher, football coach, and was going to work with the Rambler track and field program,” a spokesperson for the program wrote on Facebook.
Officials said an autopsy will be performed to determine Millican’s cause of death.
A cause for the fire, which ultimately destroyed the home, remains under investigation.
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