Frankfort Firefighters' Swift Actions Salvage Dress, Concert For Teen

FRANKFORT, IL — Like many devoted Taylor Swift fans, Grace Farrell will cherish photos from her up-close experience with the pop music star whose Eras Tour is sweeping the nation.

But for the Frankfort 17-year-old, the pictures and memories she and her sister captured at Soldier Field earlier this month likely will not be as memorable as the dress she wore to Swift's final Chicago performance. The pink floral printed summer dress was always what the rising Lincoln-Way East senior planned to wear to the show before a devastating fire swept through the family's Frankfort home less than 24 hours before Swift was to take the stage for her Sunday night performance.

But thanks to first responders who spent more than three hours at the scene of the blaze and the actions of two firefighters who went back inside the home after the fire had been extinguished, a dress Grace Farrell never expected to ever wear again made its Taylor Swift debut.

"It felt good to be in the dress," Grace told Patch in a phone interview. "It had extra special meaning behind it."

Fire crews arrived on the scene of the fire on Amhearst Court at 11:49 p.m. on June 3 when firefighters found flames coming out of the roof of the garage. Grace’s room was above the garage, which put it in danger of sustaining the most damage from the blaze, along with the house’s attic. Grace says she and a friend were about to go to bed when they heard a banging noise that she first thought was someone trying to break into the garage.

She immediately called her mother, who was on vacation. Her mother said to call 911, which her friend did while Grace went down to alert her grandfather. When he opened the garage door, the house immediately filled with smoke, Grace said.

"It's one of those moments that you see on TV and you think, 'That will probably never happen to me,'" Grace said. "But then you're like, 'Woah, this is happening.' Two weeks later, it still hasn't hit me that my house burned down. ...it won't hit me that it actually happened."

Frankfort firefighter Brian Adcock said that the fire got so bad at one point, that firefighters were forced to evaluate before eventually containing the fire. Due to the amount of smoke and heat damage, the house was considered a total loss, but Adcock and fellow firefighter Jake Smith were asked to go into the home to secure a couple of items nearly three hours after the fire had started.

Chief among them was Grace’s retainer and the dress she was to have worn to the Taylor Swift concert the following night.

Adcock, the lead investigator for the department, said the investigative stage had started when Grace realized that her retainer and dress were still inside her room. The teenager initially asked if she could go inside — a request immediately denied by Adcock.

“It was not stable, it was unsafe,” Adcock told Patch on Thursday.

Grace had purchased the dress online in March after a Google search about what to wear to a Taylor Swift concert. Grace's sister initially told Grace that she hadn't gotten tickets when they first went on sale and a Ticketmaster break-down caused a fiasco for hopeful Swifties. But as a surprise, Grace learned on Christmas morning that she and her sister would be attending the show.

That sent her into a search for the perfect outfit, which she found on Amazon and expedited the shipping on after learning it could take up to a month to arrive, she said. But then the fire changed everything — or so she thought.

Grace and her sister initially changed their plans after the fire, deciding too much had happened to go to the concert. But after speaking to their mother, they decided to go, which immediately made them think of Grace's dress.

"The dress," Christina told her sister.

When Adcock inquired about what dress the two sisters were talking about, Grace informed him of their plans to attend the Taylor Swift show in Chicago the next night. Grace showed Adcock a photo of the dress, and he said he would do his best to find it.

After securing the retainer, Adcock and Smith were able to remove the bedroom door and looked inside the closet, where, lo and behold, the dress was hanging.

The two firemen returned to Grace and her family to applause, and thanks from Grace’s mother, Cheryl, who immediately let the firefighters know what their return trip into the house meant.

“Whatever it takes, (Grace) is going to the concert tonight, and you have put some normalcy back into her life by getting this dress,” Cheryl Farrell told the firefighters.

Cheryl Farrell said that her daughters had told her that they were planning to scrap their plans for the Taylor Swift show given the circumstances. But Cheryl told ABC7 that she insisted they go to enjoy their life.

Adcock is pleased he could play a small role in making it happen.

“It was a good feeling," he told Patch. "Grace lost all of her stuff in her bedroom, and so it was a good feeling to go in there and see the dress was still salvageable.”

He added: “It was a good feeling to know she was able to go to the concert.”

Adcock said when he handed Grace her dress, he said the feeling of knowing she would still be able to enjoy the hit show wearing the dress hopefully took some of the pain away from losing so many possessions. In addition to Grace’s retainer and dress, Adcock said that firefighters were able to salvage most of Grace’s father’s sports memorabilia collection.

Afterward, family members asked Adcock to pose for a photo with Grace holding her dress, knowing that day would not be one the family would soon forget.

In the hours after the fire, Grace’s family was able to get the dress laundered to get the smell of the smoke out of the dress in time for Grace to make her way to Soldier Field to a show she said will carry with her for the rest of her life.

“It was hard for us to leave our family during a beyond devastating time, but my mom wanted us to 'shake it off' and free our mind from the pain," Grace’s 37-year-old sister, Christina, wrote on Facebook, referencing one of Swift’s biggest hits. "Taylor Swift, we are beyond ready for it."

"Thank you for all of the first responders and village of support for helping us pick up the pieces. It means the world."

Two weeks later, the surreal nature of not only the Taylor Swift experience but the fact she wore the dress she did remains almost unreal to the teenage Swiftie.

"Being at that concert and being in the dress was definitely an unreal experience," Grace told Patch. "People go to the concert to go to the concert, but I went to the concert because I needed happiness and I needed to distract myself.

"Even if you're not a Swiftie, she puts on unbelievable performances ... Going there and singing the songs was fun, but it was so incredible because less than 24 hours before we were crying in front of our house watching it burn down."

See Grace enjoying Taylor Swift's final "Eras" show at Soldier Field.