On one fateful day in 1954, Alfred “Skeeter” Nelson, a 44-year-old volunteer fireman for the Fairhope Fire Department, went to check out an overheating gas tank.

He and two other firefighters tried to put cold water on the tank in an attempt to cool it down, but while Nelson was walking away from the tank with his back turned, it exploded. The other firefighters suffered only minor injuries, but Nelson was knocked to the ground and was severely burned, with his belt and his wallet being the only surviving items on him by the time he arrived at the hospital.

Nelson’s daughter, Janet, was 17 years old and a junior at Fairhope High School when the incident happened. She played in the school band and was at practice when the band director told her that she needed to go to the hospital. That night, Helms and her siblings went to visit her father in the hospital. When they entered the room, Nelson was lying in bed surrounded by buckets with fluids dripping into each one. They had to keep the room’s temperature as hot as he was so he wouldn’t get pneumonia.

“I’m 17 years old, and I walk in and I see my dad like that,” she recalls. “It’s something you can’t even comprehend.”

Now 89, Janet Helms is one of three surviving children of Nelson, along with her sister, Dorothy Bowen, 82, and her brother, Eddie Nelson, 80. They are among the seven children who Nelson raised, along with his sons, Jimmy, Paul, Herman and his other daughter, Rochelle McKee, who have passed away.

Helms still lives in Fairhope with her husband, Morris, a 98-year-old Army veteran who saw service during both World War II and the Korean War. More than 70 years after her father’s tragic accident, she hopes that the dangers firemen face while on the job resonates with the public today.

“Being a fireman is more than just putting on a uniform and going out and fighting a fire,” Helms said. “You don’t know if you’re gonna do something and it’s gonna backfire on you and could take your life.”

Nicknamed “Skeeter” because of his small stature, Nelson had served as a volunteer firefighter and gas inspector for Fairhope since 1952. Following the incident, he was hospitalized for around four months. Helms recalled the only time her mother left her husband’s room at the hospital was when she went downstairs to get a cup of coffee. When she returned, Nelson was standing at the window trying to figure out how to jump out. She never left his side after.

Once he returned home, readjusting to life after the incident was not easy. Nelson was bedridden for some time, and Helms recalled when he first tried to leave the house in a car, her father would get stares from people when he went out in public, making him not wanting to leave the house.

However, Helms also remembers when his fellow firemen would come to their home to help the family, whether it was bathing Nelson or taking the kids out for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Nelson spent a year away from his firefighting duties while recovering and retired from the fire department in 1955. He died in 1991 at the age of 81.
According to Helms, the fire department has never had another serious accident happen similar to what Nelson experienced, something she is proud of.

“This was happening in 1954, and here we are in 2026, so that tells you that they’re (up to date) with their equipment, taking care of the firemen, supporting the environment,” Helms said. “That’s a blessing and something to say good about in Fairhope.”

To commemorate Nelson, the Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department dedicated their fire training facility to him in 1992 under then-Mayor James P. Nix. This year, the training facility was rebuilt with a new state-of-the-art building, spanning three stories allowing officials to simulate different types of rescue and forced entries. The Fairhope Volunteer Fire Department rededicated the facility to Nelson, with his living family, including Helms, in attendance for the ribbon cutting of the new fire training facility.

They will host an open house for the public on April 18, starting at 10 a.m. allowing guests to see the new building for themselves.