This teacher from Columbus became a hero. How she saved former student from Maui wildfire

A Columbus High School and Columbus State University graduate who now is a teacher is being hailed as a hero for saving the life of a former student after a chance encounter during the deadly wildfire on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

Lahainaluna High School biology and marine science teacher Jackie Ellis, who graduated in 2008 from CHS and in 2013 from CSU, where she captained the soccer team, helped the former student escape and avoid being among the more than 100 confirmed deaths or unknown number of people still missing amid the devastation.

“If it wasn’t for her, I would not have made it to my friend’s house, and I wouldn’t have been able to get out of the fire,” Joa Navarro told HSTA.org, the Hawaii State Teachers Association.

While fleeing Aug. 8 from her townhouse in Lahaina with her two miniature Australian shepherd dogs, Ellis, 33, noticed the driver of another car at a stoplight was Navarro, who graduated from Lahainaluna in May.

They couldn’t keep their windows rolled down to talk to each other, Ellis told ABC News, because the wildfire smoke would have filled their cars, but Navarro used hand signals to explain his car was running out of gas, and she signaled back for him to follow her.

Stuck in traffic, and seeing “embers flying by,” Ellis said, she changed her evacuation plan. Instead of heading north to a friend’s house seven miles away in Kahana, she and Navarro drove their cars south to a nearby elementary school so he could park his car and get in hers.

“It was just a weird twist of fate that we ran into each other. It was crazy,“ Ellis told HSTA. “You could see all the smoke and all the blackness behind us, but it was weird because the sky was blue and sunny elsewhere.”

When they reached Laniupoko, three miles away, Ellis dropped off Navarro at a friend’s house, and she got shelter at the home of one of her friends in the same town. A drive that normally takes 10 minutes took them 90 minutes due to the traffic.

And looking at what ordinarily would have been a beautiful view, Ellis “just watched my town burn,” she told HSTA. “You couldn’t look away from it, but it broke your heart every second.”

Ellis marveled at “all these little choices that I made” and resulted in safety for her and Navarro.

She wondered aloud in her interview with HSTA, “If I had kept trying to go north, would I have ended up having to flee to the water? If I hadn’t turned around, would I have found Joa because his car ran out of gas?”

In addition to her heroism, Navarro appreciates Ellis for having been his favorite teacher.

“I would go into her class during recess and lunch really frequently to just hang out and talk,” he told HSTA. “After all that time, we actually became good friends. I’ve looked up to her so much because she’s so smart and kind. She’s helped me through tons of different life problems and stuff in and outside of school, so it’s pretty funny that she was also the one to save me.”

The condition of her home and school

Ellis told the Ledger-Enquirer in a text message, “My townhome is still there, but there’s no power or water, and it’s potentially toxic air quality since several buildings in my neighborhood and many surrounding our neighborhood did burn in the fire.”

As far as she knows, Ellis said, she has “minimal property damage.” Her townhouse “will need inside cleaned and new fridge and stuff like that, but from the fire I seem to be okay for now but it hasn’t been officially inspected.”

Ellis isn’t sure when she will be allowed to return to living in her townhouse.

“I can get let in by the National Guard to go grab things from the house,” she said, “but it’s not safe to live there currently and we haven’t been given a timeline.”

As for her school building, Ellis has heard that it is “okay, but we haven’t been cleared to go back up there,” she told the L-E. “We are being told that we’re going to have to report to a school (Sept. 11) on the other side of the island and function as a ‘school within a school’ until it’s safe to be back on campus.”

Meeting President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden

At the request of the Hawaii State Teachers Association, Ellis was among approximately 15 teachers invited by the White House to join the Aug. 21 gathering of about 350 folks who met in the Lahaina Civic Center with President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden during their visit to Maui.

Ellis wrote in her text message to the Ledger-Enquirer that President Biden’s comments “honestly didn’t inspire me,” but it was “VERY nice to talk to” the first lady, a fellow teacher. Jill Biden is an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College and is considered the first wife of a president to work in a salaried position while living in the White House.

Taking advantage of the moment, Ellis shared her concerns with the first lady about not having enough mental health professionals for students and school employees to counsel those struggling to return when classes reopen.

“We teachers are also going through trauma,” Ellis told the L-E. “We will need help too. If we don’t get the right support for these students, we will be responsible for a traumatized generation of people.”

Ellis also criticized the Hawaii Department of Education for not doing enough to support school employees in this tragedy.

“Not one person who lost their home was reached out to by our employer,” Ellis told the L-E. “The communication has been pretty abysmal. There are boat tour companies doing more for their employees than the DOE is for us, and we serve the community here.”

Ellis, however, was impressed and grateful that the first lady took notes while listening.

“I’m hoping there’s some follow through,” she said.

Reflecting on all that she’s been through the past three weeks, Ellis told the L-E in an email Wednesday, “I feel many mixed emotions. Extremely lucky. But also very guilty. I’ve only been here for 10 years and there are these multi-generational households that have been lost. … I don’t know how to not feel guilt for having more than these families that have been here for generations.

“But I also know it gives me a chance to help a bit better. So I’m trying to hold onto that. But it’s hard. I always have heard of survivor’s guilt, but I never thought it would be something I’d experience. People I love deeply have lost everything, and they have families to provide for. It’s not an easy thing to reconcile with, I suppose.”