Mount Vernon resident Justin Bagent choked back tears as he recalled the support he and his family have received from local residents following a house fire on Christmas Eve that destroyed his home located at 805 West Vine Street in Mount Vernon.
“I would love to just thank them all and tell them that they're pretty...amazing,” Bagent told Mount Vernon News as he choked back tears. “It's very heartfelt that so many people I don't even know donated money on Christmas, no less."
Bagent, a 41-year-old father of three and longtime Ariel employee who is well known for his side gig as a DJ for Justin’s Crossfade DJ Service, has been the subject of a fundraiser that has raised $8,600 from 76 donors since his house was lost to a fire just before Christmas killing the family’s beloved pets dog Tuffy and Milky their snake. The family’s pet turtle survived the fire.
The fire is thought to have started after a light bulb in Milky’s terrarium exploded and sent cinders flying across the room landing on a pile of freshly laundered clothes resting on Bagent’s couch.
Bagent, who attended East Knox High School before graduating from the Knox County Career Center, said he was always very picky about keeping electronics and other items unplugged in the house when he and his family were gone. But Milky the snake needed the heat lamp on continuously.
“It's wintertime, so we always made sure the snake had his light on because he wouldn't be able to live if we had,” Bagent said. “So yes, I did leave that light on. But the snake would not be alive if he didn't have that heat up during the wintertime. But we were really picky about leaving anything. We didn't leave battery chargers or cell phones or anything plugged in when we weren't there.”
Bagent, who was enjoying a day out with his children and his girlfriend’s children, received back-to-back calls from a concerned neighbor about a fire at his residence.
“It was a regular day,” Bagent recalled. “Got up, let the dog out. We all went out to my mom and dad's for a couple of hours, then Apple Valley and opened presents there, and came back in town to meet my girlfriend and her kids at the movie theater to watch Sonic 3.”
As the family settled into the theater, Bagent’s phone started ringing. Initially dismissing it as a regular call, he stepped outside when his neighbor’s calls continued.
"I had back-to-back phone calls from my neighbor," Bagent explained. "I told my girlfriend, 'hey, I’ve got to step outside here and try to read this or whatever.'"
The gravity of the situation quickly became clear when Bagent’s neighbor was nearly in tears. “She was literally almost screaming but crying at the same time saying, ‘Justin, you need to get here now, Justin, you need to get here now. Your house is on fire.’”
Bagent wasted no time, telling his girlfriend they needed to leave.
“I said, I got to go,” he recalled. “So, she got up with all the kids, and I was driving down there.”
By the time Bagent arrived home, the fire had been put out, but the damage was done.
"My neighbor said it had pretty much engulfed the place," he said.
In the aftermath of the fire Bagent said the response from the community was overwhelming.
He even had a neighbor offer to place the family in a spare bedroom.
Despite the loss, he and his family Bagent focused on the positives of the situation and the community support he and his family received in their darkest hour.
“We live in a small town and they really stepped up and I mean, I would never live in a large town,” he said. “I will live in a small town the rest of my life because of how people and I've always been a giver or a helper or a fixer. And I think that paying it forward–I think it's true.”
Bagent said the community support has been overwhelming.
“I'm just super thankful for all the prayers that have gone out and everybody donating,” Bagent said. “No matter what they donated. I know we've had clothes, we've had beds, we've had money, we've had gift cards. We've had toys.” He said given the proximity to Christmas some of the family’s presents were lost in the fire. “Some of the stuff got destroyed,” he said. But on Christmas Day the Fredericktown Fire Department pitched in.
“The Fredericktown Fire Department on Christmas Day got a hold of me and said, 'We need you to come up here. We had an amazing toy drive. We helped over 150 people and we want to help you,’” he said.
Now, he and his family are living in a home rented by his girlfriend.
His longtime Vine Street home, which is where his kids have been raised, has been considered a total loss and will be demolished. Bagent said he won’t rebuild on the plot and is instead seeing a piece of land in rural Knox County where he and his family can restart their lives.
